Potsdamer Platz 1991 Competition

POTSDAMER PLATZ 1991 COMPETITION Potsdamer Platz is the result of exten- WINNING ENTRY sive competitions, designs and planning. In 1990, Germany launched a The competition attracted 17 interna- master plan competition for Berlin in tional entries, including star architects order to obtain a comprehensive basis Richard Rogers and Daniel Libeskind. and to set a vision for further designs. It was decided by a jury composed of city planners, council representatives The context of the brief was a time and architects. when ‘the critical reconstruction’ method prevailed in Berlin. Hans The competition was won by Mu- Stimmann (the director for housing nich-based Hilmer-Sattler with a plan and construction in Berlin, the main for compact, 35m high blocks and architect of the city in 1999-2008) dense street plan. They argued against spoke about stringent aesthetic and large single buildings put up by indi- environmental requirements. vidual property owners and purpose- fully omitted an indoor shopping mall. “To all architects working Their plan was very much in the spirit in the city, including famous ones, of ‘critical reconstruction’. were given the strict conditions: new buildings should be included into the However Rem Koolhaas (a judge context. Though ‘star architects’ creat- described their plan as ‘a reactionary, ed many utopian projects for Berlin, provincial, and amateurish urban con- which suited only for architectural ception’. At the same time, the main albums. We have called our approach investors wanted spectacular architec- ‘the critical reconstruction’, that is ture. Since Daimler-Benz owned most restoration, although much buildings of the property around Potsdamer were rebuilt.” Platz, their urban design by Renzo Pi- ano ultimately, and primarily, shaped The original brief triggered debate be- the new development. tween deconstructionists (who wanted the scars of history to become the The result is an area divided between primary feature of the city’s landscape) five radiating streets referring to the and traditionalists (who wanted to site’s historic arrangement and accen- escape the city’s scars completely). tuated its forefront by high-rise towers. Daniel Libeskind is a deconstruc- The presence of skyscrapers was to tionist. He argued that traditionalist testify a city’s importance on the global attempts reflected a vision of a city ‘not arena - and influenced by investors. suited for today or for tomorrow’. The rest of the buildings were broken Libeskind believes: into blocks with a maximum height of THE BRIEF 35m, referring to the historical urban “Berlin is a new city. It is not 1870, blocks - as per Hilmer-Sattler’s original “A recreation of a mixed use design that would function as a bridge between East and West Berlin, a new centre, consisting of 1910 or 1930. It is post-war and we ‘winning’ design. Clearly the competi- retrieved character of pre-war urban life with traditional block pattern, spaces to stroll and relax. A place of high visual quality have a new economy and a new un- tion entry designs were compromised for staging public life that citizens could identify with.” derstanding of cities”. over time. DANIEL LIBESKIND Polish-born and German by adoption, Daniel Libeskind initially studied mu- sic before turning his focus to architecture. He studied at the Cooper Union in New York, under John Hejduk, and History and Theory of Architecture at Essex University. ‘Micromegas’ is one of his first works, in which he redefines the parameters for knowledge of the world and dis- places vision via parallel planes. Many of his designs are not autonomous, and live as a sequence. In each of them you can read the continuation of the pre- vious, or the depth or even a different view of the same subject. He first came to Berlin in 1987 when he won the competition for a housing project for the International Building Exhibition in West Berlin (never built). He believes both east and west were hungry for a future of the entire Berlin society as a better, enlightened, ideal, or even revolutionary, tomorrow. Libeskind is very passionate about Berlin. On arrival he was keen to see the many kinds of Modernist structures. He says: “What makes Berlin such a great city, that it has always been a modern city since the very beginning”. He describes himself as an architect who is aware of history and incorpo- rates it into his work. He acknowledges that he is part of an ongoing dialogue. Libeskind thinks the era of rebuilding structures of the past has now passed, because going back in history has never really worked – anywhere. “It is not chaos; it is an order of a different kind.” Daniel Libeskind SPATIAL CONSIDERATIONS BROADER CONTEXT traces to the light. His plan was that of a fractured star or broken glass. How- Traditionalists argued that Berlin ever it could be seen from the plastic should be ‘critically reconstructed’ ac- model that it was a design following a cording to the 19th century city-block dual nature: the crossing over of lines and street pattern. Axel Schultes, for of overlapping of layers. example, contended that any redevel- opment should reflect Berlin’s archi- It was impossible to reconstruct the tectural traditions, specifically ‘the demolished fabric of the city: the only solid and Prussian approach’ to urban solution was a dialectical overlaying of planning. Daniel Libeskind regarded buildings like trajectories that fit one such sentiments as ‘reactionary’. To into the other with alternating vertical Libeskind, and other deconstructionist sections. architects, the proposed architectural models of the traditionalists were: However, the constraints of the brief and presence of German Democratic “At best like a thirties boulevard in Republic buildings was strong and Milan or Madrid, at worst like a Ger- urged Libeskind towards a difficult di- man military parade street”. alogue. There was a battle to be waged Rudolf Stegner against nostalgic historicism and the blank slate of totalitarianism: effective- Libeskind’s opinion was supported by ly he was stuck between a rock and a Rem Koolhaas, for whom the beauty of hard place. the German capital lay in these major areas of ‘nothingness’, which were left INSPIRATION by the European history, making it the most contemporary and avant-garde of Kafka’s The Castle is a novel which all cities. broke down all real referents, dissolv- ing the ties of time and place. With its For deconstructionists, from a spatial many entrances, it reflected the idea of perspective, Berlin’s voids presented a the Jewish city. Libeskind quotes Kaf- provocative lack of imposed logic that ka’s Prague, that of the Jewish ghetto, they valued. Libeskind protested again made up of winding paths and build- traditionalists, saying that Berlin did ings that grew one on top of the other, not need any new order, because it was where K. wandered ‘securely suspend- already a perfectly ordered city. It is ed in the air.’ This imagery can clearly these approaches that are represented be observed in his entry. by his entry for the Potsdamer Platz competition. Another influence was the internal world of painter Marc Chagall, and of THE CASTLE LIBESKIND’S ENTRY the popular fable where houses freed themselves from their tie with the Is a 1926 novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist known only as K. arrives in a village and struggles to gain The architect was seeking the absent earth and in which dream and reality access to the mysterious authorities who govern it from a castle. soul of the city. Berlin allowed him to exchanged roles. describe the invisible and bring hidden SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS BROADER CONTEXT LIBESKIND’S ENTRY By acknowledging that the memory of If it was not possible to think that the past destruction must be visibly avail- ruins of Potsdamer Platz could decree able to the present, Daniel Libeskind its identity, Libeskind took an alterna- says we can begin to read ‘between tive approach. His design ‘captured the the lines’ and see a different future for angel’ in ‘ten rays of absolute absence’. Berlin and for the public square. Shattered memory became the symbol of this intervention. In his entry, it was Libeskind is very aware of present day these shattered fragments that ruled challenges: the composition, whilst the distinction between building and city disappeared. “You need affordable housing, places for kids and families, more public It is an unfinished mosaic with pieces places”. coming from Paris, Vienna, Venice and Berlin. But importantly the ten He says conservatives argue that an lines intertwin programmes and func- old city was such a good city, that it tions with different uses. In the entry, is much safer to rebuild in that image this included apartments, factories, than to move forward to something markets, hospitals, nursery schools, unknown. But do you really want cemeteries and libraries, all interwo- to have the old city back with all its ven in an anti-zoning plan at different disadvantages that are so easily over- levels of height. looked? Does this actually solve the current challenges? As per the brief, the part of the city still alive is saved. At the same time, In Libeskind’s opinion, if you just the new Potsdamer Platz aimed to follow the old building lines and vol- resolve the economic and cultural divi- umes, you are actually treating the city sion between east and west. A horizon- like a piece of art or a museum that has tal prism dominates the great plan on to stay the same or that was finished at an axis with Parisien Platz: a stranded some point. Effectively, this is ignoring aircraft-carrier suspended in the sky. the social implications and requirements of modern society.

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