If you’re a fan of horror and looking for some binge-worthy German series for the upcoming lockdown 2.0, we just might have a recommendation for you. Check out “Hausen”, the new horror series available on Sky – especially if you agree that giant East German apartment blocks have something monstrous about them.
For me, as an art and design lover, any visual proposal that allows me to discover new ways to look or to see my environment is always exciting. It’s very inspiring to find different or unusual things that unravel in front of your eyes. When I think about architecture I automatically tend to picture either classic art history examples or really futuristic constructions with large windows, clean lines, and diaphanous spaces filled with carefully designed and placed furniture. But in reality, we can’t escape all the trashy and clumsy examples that frame our sight on our daily way to work or while we walk the streets of Berlin.
In the German language, there is even a word for those concrete blocks that make Berlin look like a grey Tetris game and it’s called: Plattenbau. If you heart Berlin as much as we do, you probably have already found The Hidden Beauty of the Plattenbau architecture, or you might even know the Cuckoo Blocks clocks, a really ingenious reinterpretation of this style of construction.
Konrad alias Konaction is one of the most important and influential Berlin Instagrammers, over 130 thousand followers speak for themselves. He is a master in capturing Berlin’s unusual, nonconformist beauty, in grey skies, concrete walls and geometrical shapes. Like hardly any other Instagrammer he has managed to keep a level of originality in his stream of photos that always makes you look forward to the next one, always makes surprised to see a side of the city that you never noticed before.
We met up with Konaction and talked about the usefulness of hashtags, photogenic hotspots and how he makes all of Berlin desire a Plattenbau apartment.
The Plattenbau buildings of Berlin never fail to inspire people. They are not exactly conventionally beautiful, but they are so characteristic, they symbolize urban life, concrete architecture and a bit of nostalgia. We’ve already showed you how they were used for a game of tetris, as a canvas for art, appreciated as design icons, and a backdrop for free runners.
With our latest discovery we can add another use of the Plattenbau to our list. Artist Guido Zimmermann created some very awesome looking cuckoo clocks in the style of Plattenbau. He has a whole series named Cuckoo Blocks that explores different brutalist variations, but one in particular is titled Berlin and modelled after some Plattenbau buildings that are typical for the city, including grey concrete pendants and satellite dishes. Aren’t they cute?
Whatever your opinion on the murals at Art Park Tegel might be, I bet their sight will not leave you indifferent, which is actually the true purpose of art; the ability to convey feelings through opening the door to fruitful dialogue, to peaceful exchange of opinions, to communication. Read on…
photos: Malte Brandenburg
What to do when you miss your hometown? Right – you just take it with you, piece by piece!
I always liked Berlin’s post-war buildings, the so-called “Plattenbau”. I spent my fair share in and around them as a kid when playing with my friends who lived there. I think they are a very interesting part of Berlin – they hold a lot of history, the foundation of what makes Berlin a very special place. And I am happy to see that the city is able to re-create itself, that these buildings might be ugly, but people have started to like them again.
With my photo series “Stacked” I simply wanted to be able to see these buildings next to each other, see how similar they are and how nice they look on a bright and sunny day. And by isolating them, I wanted to touch upon this particular concept of urban life, vertical density instead of horizontal density, and how society around these buildings evolves.