Hamburger Bahnhof

Hamburger Bahnhof is a rail station, converted into "Museum für Gegenwart" (Museum for Contemporary Art).

The space of the main façade loggia and corridors leading to the wings of the ground floor is occupied by an installation of neon light tubes, designed by American artist Dan Flavin specifically for the building.

Architektonika displays sculptural and photographic works, films and paintings that illustrate different approaches to the relationship between art and architecture since the 1960s. It emphasises the sculptural and visual qualities of architectural structures. Because of the way it deals with how architecture defines urban space, the way we live and the relationship between architecture and social issues, this exhibition was the most valuable experience in Berlin.

Andrea Pichi- Doublebind, 2011

Isa Genzken- New building for Berlin, 2001
 

Isa Genzken- Brunnen, 1989

Perceiving Berlin

THIS COULD BE HOME

The spatiality of the city feels somewhat overwhelming. The modern buildings seem authoritative. Historical buildings are graceful. All the colours, textures and structures seem familiar. The subtle greys, beiges and browns, the glaziers' putty in the station windows, the people… All of this makes me realize I am attached to the continent more than I thought. The streets, shops and galleries don’t try to sell an essence of the character of the city- they are formed by it. 

THE BAUHAUS ARCHIVE

The security at the Bauhaus archive adds to the sacred aura surrounding the artefacts from the dawn of modern design. The building of the archive itself represents modern utopias better than any of the objects in the museum. Designed by W. Gropius the founder of Bauhaus, it doesn’t really feel real from the outside. The whiteness of the “building of the future” appears as a vast paper monument of modernity.

KUNSTHAUS TACHELES

Partially demolished building, originally called Friedrichsstadtpassagen was built as a department store in the Jewish quarters of Berlin. Today, the building accommodates an artists collective who named it Tacheles, Yiddish for "straight talking.” All the walls are covered in graffiti. Activist slogans, private messages, illustrated weed lyricism… everything overlaps on the concrete canvas of the building. The layers of loud bold outbursts cover everything.

THE HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

Designed by an U.S. architect Peter Eisenman, this vast stone structure occupies approximately 19 000 square meters of space near the Brandenburg Gate, only a short distance away from the buried ruins of Hitler’s bunker. It consists of 2711 stone monoliths of unique sizes; some of them are only knee high while others tower over people walking through the memorial. The mute slabs of tragic legacy create a feeling of instability and disorientation.