BUILT INBERLIN

Creative Writing & Graphic Design Sample

sounds and the textures of Berlin over-whelmed me. I have lived in urban land-scapes all my life, but something was dif-ferent about Berlin. Berlin is a city that shows its scars. Throughout the city you can spot buildings pockmarked with bullet holes, monuments bandaged with ceramic patchwork, and pieces of history still undergoing recon-structive surgery. Many buildings stand as testaments to Germany’s psyche. In the span of a ten-minute walk, one can see a monument to gays and lesbians persecuted during the Holocaust, a memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe, and a structure honoring Soviet soldiers killed in WWII. Berlin’s citizens and visitors are continu-ally brought into collision with these struc-tures during their daily routine. It is why many have named Berlin “a city of apolo-gies.” While the United States has its own scars, very rarely are we brought into regu-lar contact with them. Berlin is saturated with an intimate understanding of pain, and it is the physical manifestation of this understanding in its structures that makes it so sublime. Berlin has had several different regimes sweep through its streets in the last cen-tury and a half. Each new re-gime intro-duces

You step through the glass doors into the early morning sun. Your eyes adjust to the overwhelming brightness of day after being inside for so many hours. The first images that resolve in your vision are cabs – scores of cabs – pulling in, dropping off their hu-man cargo, others waiting, and some car-rying dazed travelers to destinations un-known. You see the people that you came here with. They motion you toward one of the vehicles. For a few moments you ban-ter with the driver in broken grammar until you arrange for him to take you and your four companions to where you will all be living for the next six weeks. As the cab speeds away from the airport and enters the city, you see things that look so familiar, yet you have never been here before. “That’s the Brandenbugrer Tor, one of the most recognizable monuments marking the old city.” “There’s the Fernseheturm, constructed at the height of the East regime.” These facts spill from your mouth as you point out landmarks to your fellows in the car. Though you know these structures – though you are certain the facts are true – the tiny captions and black and white images you recall from class do not hold a candle to the impressive forms confronting you against the slate gray sky. It is not until you step out of the cab in front of your apartment that it hits you. You are no longer on the same side of the Atlantic Ocean. You are in a different world with different structures, culture, and atmosphere. You are now in Berlin. This was my first experience in Germany as I began my summer study abroad pro-gram with Duke in Berlin. In the mere twenty-minute drive from the airport to

Adalbertstrasse, the sights, the

by Jonathan LeeBUILT IN BERLIN

all photos by Jonathan Lee

new structures to create its architectural identity; and each later regime builds over pre-existing structures. Buildings from dif-ferent eras compete to make their messages known to the people wandering the city’s streets. These messages have many different goals. The medieval period saw religion emerge as the focal point of everyday life. Institutions built churches with towering steeples to display this preeminence. To-wards the end of this era, as the society became more secular, the Rathaus (a German town hall) adopted this towering form to identify itself as a new center of power. As Berlin became the capital of the Prussian empire, their emperors sought to introduce their own symbol in this dialogue of power. They adopted the dome, a form previously reserved only for the church, on many of their structures, thus establishing the emperors as religious leaders. Their iconography on these structures took their campaign one step further. Images of the

Prussian crown were sometimes placed above images of Je-

sus, but slightly lower than images of

the cross. The Prussian

emperors recognized they were beneath God, but only barely. The Nazi party had one goal as they re-shaped Berlin’s cityscape: make Berlin a crown jewel for the Third Reich. Hitler loathed the Prussian architecture and erad-icated much of it in Berlin. Seeking to make Germany the new Rome, he adopted clas-sical architectural features but abstracted

them into harsh, alien forms. Political buildings were specially crafted

with massive imposing facades and long corridors to intimi-date foreigners who visited Berlin. Few of these cold structures remain today, however, those that remain

are constant reminders of Berlin’s dark past.

As Berlin was divided up be-tween the Allied Powers at the end

of World War II, two simultaneous, com-peting messages developed. The demo-cratic West stressed individuality, inviting architects from all over the world to create diverse vibrant neighborhoods and quar-ters for the Federal Republic of Germany. Structures in the communist German Dem-ocratic Republic stressed uniformity and equality. These clashing values coalesced into an architectural arms race as each re-gime tried to assert the superiority of their society. This race culminated in the Repub-lic’s construction of the Fernsehturm (TV tower), which was visible from the western side of the Berlin Wall, as a final display of communist pride and contempt for the West. Now, in a unified Berlin, much of the ar-chitecture is devoted to healing the symbol-ic scars of the past. The Parliamentary Of-fice Building spans across the Rhine River, physically unifying what

was o n c e East and West Berlin. Many other buildings - such as the Haupt-bahnhof (central train station) and Bundes-kanleramt (chancellery) - use glass to con-vey transparency. This transparency is not just physical; it is a symbol of a promise of political transparency to the citizens of Ger-many. This notion of transparency inspired the glass dome that now graces the top of the Reichstag. Each of these buildings is merely a piece in a mosaic. It is when you step away from the single structure that you see the image the individual tiles make - Berlin. This architectural vibrancy gives Berlin its urban identity. Any of these buildings would be beautiful or impressive in their own right, but be-cause they are crammed together, piled on top of one another, and coexisting, they make something greater than themselves. They create a certain atmosphere that I felt as I lived in this city for six weeks during the summer. It is this atmosphere that I saw as I rode on the S-Bahn elevated above the city streets. It was this atmosphere that I felt on that first day when I pointed out features to my study abroadcompanions. “See that line of red stone? A sec-tion of the Berlin wall was once there.”

“You are no longer on the same side of the Atlantic

Ocean.”

BUILT IN BERLIN

2010