Contemporary Architecture

Hardly any building of contemporary architecture in Germany has triggered such controversy as the new construction of the Hauptbahnhof, which in 2006 was put into operations. The between Josef Paul Kleihues and Meinhard von Gerkan held “contest” for the multi-billion building project was won by von Gerkan. He conceptualised the requested crossing station’s respective form out of an above ground 420-metre long glass hall and to it a crosswise laying underground platform hall, both crowned by two so called gantry type structures. The idea, analogue to the great railway constructions of the 19th century, with large glass roofs and natural light to work, is even with the 20-metre deep situated platform, convincingly transcribed.
With the Jewish Museum, Daniel Libeskind very well created the most complex and interesting museum building of the city. The, with 165 participants, winning design of the Jewish Polish born American fascinates through its extraordinary appearance. A building without entrance, without conventional windows, in an expressive zig-zag form, originally even with crooked standing outer walls, which blocks itself from a painless integration into the city as well as to a conventional functionality of a museum building. The neighbouring old-build, one of the few still preserved Baroque city palaces, is cleverly used as an entrance building, attached solely through an underground connection to the body of the new museum.
One of the most fascinating Berliner architectural pieces of the earlier times, which is known for its interplay of light, space, function and form, is moreover, the Treptow Crematorium. Architect Axel Schultes self described his realised crematorium project with the words: “ that is a hollowed out seamless 50x70 metre concrete block, which into its openings glass was placed. The entire block was buried ten metres deep into the earth, so that it adapts itself to the surroundings.”