Urban planning in Berlin has to foster integration of historic structures and contemporary urbanism and architecture. It can do so by shaping new architecture harmoniously into the existing fabric and yet daring a contemporary and vivid contrast to the historic assembly. We will learn about Berlin’s architectural history and general design theories as a basis for designing for such integration without giving up the site’s personality. In this course, we will design for specific sites representing specific design problems and will thus develop a New Berlin by being aware of existing architecture, urbanism, social structures, and the theories underlying it.
The general layout of the course consists of four steps:
We will learn about general design theories and the questions of building: Shaping spaces, forming relationships between buildings, and the sketching techniques for the design process.
We will visit important sites, analyze the sites and hear what specialists and residents have to say. Thus we delve into Berlin’s history, cultural identity and social diversity. We will analyze many examples of how to insert a new building into an old context.
We will design projects for specific problems. We will work on three levels of designing:
A short “Stegreif”-design (impromptu design project): a quick brainstorming idea with rough sketches demonstrating the outlines
A homework design to be discussed in class
A one-day-long course with a design discussed with an architect
We will discuss the designs, asking two questions:
Is it a sound and new design, appropriate for the present?
Does it integrate urbanism, social structures and the culture of the place?
All our new designs will be planned for historic environments. The idea is to learn that these designs always deal with two different goals: On the one hand, they try to fit harmoniously into the historical assembly; on the other hand, they aim at producing strong interaction between buildings. A good building never only fulfils just one of these purposes. In integration we seek for what Zaha Hadid calls a “dynamic equilibrium”.
The principal concept of the designs we develop during the course will free our minds from prejudice and pretentious renewal. We will learn how to integrate the new into the old, thus making the old stronger and better. We will open our minds to the spirit of Berlin, influenced by our own impressions, feelings, and ideas stirred by the vitality of this metropolis. We will visit sites, sketch, discuss, and revise our designs.
Prerequisites:
Strong interest in learning to design and gaining design experience. Students do not have to be good at sketching – just willing put a pen to paper and thus learn to form their ideas in the process.
Learning outcomes:
By the end of the course, students are able to:
Apply a basis of design skills and abilities for designing buildings in historic contexts
Evaluate buildings, structures and urbanism with an analytical view
Analyze on-site and draw preliminary sketches of ideas as starting points
Distinguish buildings as geometric bodies in relations to each other
Method of presentation:
Discussions of general design theories using examples in Berlin; visits of important sites in Berlin, site descriptions and discussions on site, development of designs indoor and as homework; discussion and revision of the results. Moodle will be used to enhance students' learning experience in interactive ways.
Required work and form of assessment:
Students must attend all class sessions, design three projects, and read the required literature. The final grade is determined by the three designs (50%) and the written final exam (20%). Active participation in class discussions is expected (30%).
Recommended reading:
- Braunfels, Wolfgang: Urban Design in Western Europe, Chicago and London 1988, pp 212-220.
In class:
Introduction and Organization
Instruction: Sketching and drawing architecture: Floor Plan, Elevation and Perspective. Develop a first idea of the relation of free space (street, place, park) and the geometric body (building, structure) in the lecture: “Spaces and Bodies: How to combine different geometric bodies?” Get a first impression of Berlin urban design history in the lecture “Berlin 1237 to present”.
Field trip:
Kreuzberg: Visit and discussion of the site. We buy our work materials (included in program fee) and make some simple sketches of buildings as geometric objects together.
Design exercise 1: (Stegreif): Insert a new building (apartments) between two old buildings in Kreuzberg. Make some preliminary sketches to get an idea of the proportions and the relations between: open / close, row / room, space / building, new / old, timid / courageous.
Homework: Develop a design out of the preliminary sketches.
Week 2
Required Reading:
- Gay, Nick: Berlin Then and Now, San Diego 2005, pp 5-143 (many pictures with short and good explanations);
- Bodenschatz, Harald: Berlin Urban Design. A Brief History, Berlin 2010, pp 8-39.
Recommended reading:
- Belfour, Alan: Berlin. The politics of Order, New York 1990, pp 8-44, 108-152.
In class:
Discussion of the character of Kreuzberg and of the homework designs as models for fitting new architecture into old. Discussion of the homework sketches for Design exercise 2.
Finish sketches: Draw an elevation of your idea and a small ground plan outlining the buildings on DIN-A-3 paper.
Field trip:
Berlin’s historic Centre: Unter den Linden, Schlossplatz, Church of Maria, Town hall, Nikolai Quarter. The history and the character of Berlin. Sketching a site to prepare a design.
Make preliminary sketches for Design exercise 2: An urban design for the space, where the Berlin Imperial Palace and later the “Palace of the Republic” stood: Think of the relation between space and the body of the building. Find and design a working new relation. You may think of a new building or of a space being in a fitting relation to the existing buildings. Consider whatever function you find appropriate.
Homework: Develop a design out of the preliminary sketches.
Week 3
Required reading:
- Giedion, Sigfried: Space, Time and Architecture. The Growth of a New Tradition, Fifth Revised and Enlarged Edition, Oxford 2003, pp xxxii – lvi, 815-869.
Recommended Reading:
- Goldhagen, Sarah Williams and Legault, Réjean (Ed.): Anxious Modernism. Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture, Cambridge and London 2000, pp 11-24, 301-320.
In class:
Work out the design for the building or landscape on Schlossplatz: Draw a perspective of the site and a small site plan on DIN-A-3 paper.
Discussion of the advantages and problems of each design.
Evening: Informal meeting: Presentation by each class member of ten photos from his/her hometown and discussion about them.
Recommended reading:
- Ching, Francis D. K.: Architecture: Form, Space & Order, New Jersey 2007, pp 183-238.
Field Trip:
The vital life and urbanism in Spandauer Vorstadt: Baroque urban structures, 19th century buildings and contemporary culture.
In class:
Design exercise 3. Design a complex of buildings into the old town at Oranienburger Straße. Try to reach a working layout of roads and spaces, opening the new ground and forming relations between existing streets. Form the ground as a public space continuing the tradition and avoid gentrification. Think of the inside structures of the building: where are the entrances, where to fit in what functions? Look up the principal data in Neufert’s “Architects Data”. The design that will be made in session 8 consists of two sheets of DIN-A-3 papers, one with a perspective and one with a floor plan including inner structures.
Homework: Develop your design for Design exercise 3.
Week 5
Required reading:
- Worskett, Roy: The Character of Towns. An approach to conservation, London 1969, pp 177-207 and 215;
Recommended reading:
- Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.): The Neues Museum Berlin. Conserving, restoring, rebuilding within the World Heritage, Leipzig 2009, pp 56-64.
In class:
Discussion of homework sketches for design exercise 3.
Field trip: Re-Analysis of the site. Take new sketches on site.
In class: Work, discuss and revise the site plan and the perspective with the instructor and a visiting architect.
Week 6
Required reading:
- Jäger, Falk, Waterfront Living and Working: Hamburg's HafenCity, http://www.goethe.de/kue/arc/dos/dos/sls/sdz/en3356905.htm;
- Hillmann, Roman: Anti-Modernism and Architectural Rhetoric: The Case of Prince Charles, in: Edinburgh Architectural Research, Vol. 29, 2004, pp 67-71.
Field trip: Two-day trip to Hamburg: “Hafencity” on the waterfront and the famous Philharmonic Hall by Herzog and De Meuron.
Analyse the renewed former industrial area, analyse the combination with the old part of the city of Hamburg and make sketches of sites, perhaps a Stegreif, when specific questions arise.
Week 7:
In class: Final design exam with a written part and a design part: PART 1: answering two questions about design theories using examples in Berlin’s history of urbanism and architecture. PART 2: sketching a short specific design exercise, chosen by the instructor as an example for the theories in part 1.
Exhibition of the Designs at the Farewell-Meeting
Required readings:
Newest Design Tendencies
For new tendencies in contemporary international architecture: “El croquis”, a series of books on very important new architects, published by croquis editorial, ISSN 0212-5633. www.elcroquis.es.
For new tendencies in contemporary German architecture: recent issues of the journal “db Deutsche Bauzeitung” published by Konradin Mediengruppe, ISSN 0721-1902.
Designing
Ching, Francis D. K.: Architecture: Form, Space & Order, New Jersey 2007.
Gänshirt, Christian: Tools for Ideas. Introduction to Architectural Design, Basel and Boston, Berlin 2007.
Taki, Koji, Conversation. The design process, in: El Croquis magazine Nr. 77, 99, 121 and 122 (in one volume), SAANA Architects 1983-2004, Madrid, pp 22-30
Tsonis, Alexander and Lefaivre, Liane: Classical Architecture. The Poetics of Order, Cambridge-Massachusetts 1986
Architectural Theories, Developed on the Basis of Architectural History
Giedion, Sigfried: Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition, Fifth Revised and Enlarged Edition, 2003.
Goldhagen, Sarah Williams and Legault, Réjean (Ed.): Anxious Modernism. Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture, Cambridge and London 2000.
Hillmann, Roman: Anti-Modernism and Architectural Rhetoric. The Case of Prince Charles, in: Edinburgh Architectural Research, Vol. 29, 2004.\
Relph, Edward: The modern urban landscape, Baltimore 1987.
Design and Preservation at Historic Monuments and Sites, Theories and Practice
Petzet, Michael and Mader, Gert: Praktische Denkmalpflege, Stuttgart, Berlin, Köln 1993 (to get general ideas you may just read captions in part two, pp 127-325). (recommended)
Worskett, Roy: The Character of Towns. An approach to conservation, London 1969.
Roman Hillmann is an architectural historian and critic who worked with architects in designing, and drew plans of antique, medieval, renaissance and modern architecture. He teaches at several Berlin Universities. Dr. Hillmann was born and raised in Hamburg and moved to Berlin in 1990. Here, he studied Classical Archaeology, History of Art and Conservation at the Free University and Technical University. During non-term periods, he made surveys and supervised Building Restoration and Structural Preservation in the Building Archaeology (“Bauforschung”) at the Bavarian State Office for the Conservation of Monuments. Dr. Hillmann was a Fellow at the DFG (German Research Foundation) in the Graduate Program “Historic Building Research – Historic Preservation – Art History” in Berlin from 2002 to 2005. While publishing, teaching, attending and speaking at conferences he discovered his interest in architecture as a cultural, social and technical context.
Dr. Hillmann's dissertation deals with “The First Post-War Modernity: Aesthetics and Perception of the Western-German Architecture 1945-1963”. He taught and teaches History of Architecture, Architectural Theories, Cultural History, Art History and History of Design and Aesthetics at Technical University Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin, and the University of Applied Science in Berlin. He also regularly guides English-speaking professors, students and businesspeople to new architectural sites in Berlin, such as Frank O. Gehry’s DZ Bank at Brandenburg Gate and the Crematorium in Berlin-Treptow by Axel Schultes
Keep The Spirit! Theories, Examples, And Exercises In Designing A New Berlin, Respecting The Old
Urban planning in Berlin has to foster integration of historic structures and contemporary urbanism and architecture. It can do so by shaping new architecture harmoniously into the existing fabric and yet daring a contemporary and vivid contrast to the historic assembly. We will learn about Berlin’s architectural history and general design theories as a basis for designing for such integration without giving up the site’s personality. In this course, we will design for specific sites representing specific design problems and will thus develop a New Berlin by being aware of existing architecture, urbanism, social structures, and the theories underlying it.
The general layout of the course consists of four steps:
All our new designs will be planned for historic environments. The idea is to learn that these designs always deal with two different goals: On the one hand, they try to fit harmoniously into the historical assembly; on the other hand, they aim at producing strong interaction between buildings. A good building never only fulfils just one of these purposes. In integration we seek for what Zaha Hadid calls a “dynamic equilibrium”.
The principal concept of the designs we develop during the course will free our minds from prejudice and pretentious renewal. We will learn how to integrate the new into the old, thus making the old stronger and better. We will open our minds to the spirit of Berlin, influenced by our own impressions, feelings, and ideas stirred by the vitality of this metropolis. We will visit sites, sketch, discuss, and revise our designs.
Strong interest in learning to design and gaining design experience. Students do not have to be good at sketching – just willing put a pen to paper and thus learn to form their ideas in the process.
By the end of the course, students are able to:
Discussions of general design theories using examples in Berlin; visits of important sites in Berlin, site descriptions and discussions on site, development of designs indoor and as homework; discussion and revision of the results. Moodle will be used to enhance students' learning experience in interactive ways.
Students must attend all class sessions, design three projects, and read the required literature. The final grade is determined by the three designs (50%) and the written final exam (20%). Active participation in class discussions is expected (30%).
Week 1
Required Reading:
- Gänshirt, Christian: Tools for Ideas. Introduction to Architectural Design, Basel, Boston, Berlin 2007, pp 7, 20-39, 113-123, 142-145,
- Neufert, Ernst: Architect’s Data, Oxford 2000, pp 16-17.
Recommended reading:
- Braunfels, Wolfgang: Urban Design in Western Europe, Chicago and London 1988, pp 212-220.
In class:
Introduction and Organization
Instruction: Sketching and drawing architecture: Floor Plan, Elevation and Perspective. Develop a first idea of the relation of free space (street, place, park) and the geometric body (building, structure) in the lecture: “Spaces and Bodies: How to combine different geometric bodies?” Get a first impression of Berlin urban design history in the lecture “Berlin 1237 to present”.
Field trip:
Kreuzberg: Visit and discussion of the site. We buy our work materials (included in program fee) and make some simple sketches of buildings as geometric objects together.
Design exercise 1: (Stegreif): Insert a new building (apartments) between two old buildings in Kreuzberg. Make some preliminary sketches to get an idea of the proportions and the relations between: open / close, row / room, space / building, new / old, timid / courageous.
Homework: Develop a design out of the preliminary sketches.
Week 2
Required Reading:
- Gay, Nick: Berlin Then and Now, San Diego 2005, pp 5-143 (many pictures with short and good explanations);
- Bodenschatz, Harald: Berlin Urban Design. A Brief History, Berlin 2010, pp 8-39.
Recommended reading:
- Belfour, Alan: Berlin. The politics of Order, New York 1990, pp 8-44, 108-152.
In class:
Discussion of the character of Kreuzberg and of the homework designs as models for fitting new architecture into old. Discussion of the homework sketches for Design exercise 2.
Finish sketches: Draw an elevation of your idea and a small ground plan outlining the buildings on DIN-A-3 paper.
Field trip:
Berlin’s historic Centre: Unter den Linden, Schlossplatz, Church of Maria, Town hall, Nikolai Quarter. The history and the character of Berlin. Sketching a site to prepare a design.
Make preliminary sketches for Design exercise 2: An urban design for the space, where the Berlin Imperial Palace and later the “Palace of the Republic” stood: Think of the relation between space and the body of the building. Find and design a working new relation. You may think of a new building or of a space being in a fitting relation to the existing buildings. Consider whatever function you find appropriate.
Homework: Develop a design out of the preliminary sketches.
Week 3
Required reading:
- Giedion, Sigfried: Space, Time and Architecture. The Growth of a New Tradition, Fifth Revised and Enlarged Edition, Oxford 2003, pp xxxii – lvi, 815-869.
Recommended Reading:
- Goldhagen, Sarah Williams and Legault, Réjean (Ed.): Anxious Modernism. Experimentation in Postwar Architectural Culture, Cambridge and London 2000, pp 11-24, 301-320.
In class:
Work out the design for the building or landscape on Schlossplatz: Draw a perspective of the site and a small site plan on DIN-A-3 paper.
Discussion of the advantages and problems of each design.
Evening: Informal meeting: Presentation by each class member of ten photos from his/her hometown and discussion about them.
Week 4
Required Reading:
- Neufert, Ernst: Architect’s Data, Oxford 2000, pp 34-42, 363-374;
- Relph, Edward: The modern urban landscape, Baltimore 1987, pp 1-10, 98-118, 138-165.
Recommended reading:
- Ching, Francis D. K.: Architecture: Form, Space & Order, New Jersey 2007, pp 183-238.
Field Trip:
The vital life and urbanism in Spandauer Vorstadt: Baroque urban structures, 19th century buildings and contemporary culture.
In class:
Design exercise 3. Design a complex of buildings into the old town at Oranienburger Straße. Try to reach a working layout of roads and spaces, opening the new ground and forming relations between existing streets. Form the ground as a public space continuing the tradition and avoid gentrification. Think of the inside structures of the building: where are the entrances, where to fit in what functions? Look up the principal data in Neufert’s “Architects Data”. The design that will be made in session 8 consists of two sheets of DIN-A-3 papers, one with a perspective and one with a floor plan including inner structures.
Homework: Develop your design for Design exercise 3.
Week 5
Required reading:
- Worskett, Roy: The Character of Towns. An approach to conservation, London 1969, pp 177-207 and 215;
Recommended reading:
- Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.): The Neues Museum Berlin. Conserving, restoring, rebuilding within the World Heritage, Leipzig 2009, pp 56-64.
In class:
Discussion of homework sketches for design exercise 3.
Field trip: Re-Analysis of the site. Take new sketches on site.
In class: Work, discuss and revise the site plan and the perspective with the instructor and a visiting architect.
Week 6
Required reading:
- Jäger, Falk, Waterfront Living and Working: Hamburg's HafenCity, http://www.goethe.de/kue/arc/dos/dos/sls/sdz/en3356905.htm;
- Hillmann, Roman: Anti-Modernism and Architectural Rhetoric: The Case of Prince Charles, in: Edinburgh Architectural Research, Vol. 29, 2004, pp 67-71.
Field trip: Two-day trip to Hamburg: “Hafencity” on the waterfront and the famous Philharmonic Hall by Herzog and De Meuron.
Analyse the renewed former industrial area, analyse the combination with the old part of the city of Hamburg and make sketches of sites, perhaps a Stegreif, when specific questions arise.
Week 7:
In class: Final design exam with a written part and a design part: PART 1: answering two questions about design theories using examples in Berlin’s history of urbanism and architecture. PART 2: sketching a short specific design exercise, chosen by the instructor as an example for the theories in part 1.
Exhibition of the Designs at the Farewell-Meeting
Newest Design Tendencies
For new tendencies in contemporary international architecture: “El croquis”, a series of books on very important new architects, published by croquis editorial, ISSN 0212-5633. www.elcroquis.es.
For new tendencies in contemporary German architecture: recent issues of the journal “db Deutsche Bauzeitung” published by Konradin Mediengruppe, ISSN 0721-1902.
Designing
Architectural Theories, Developed on the Basis of Architectural History
Design and Preservation at Historic Monuments and Sites, Theories and Practice
History of Berlin’s Architecture and Urbanism
Hafencity Hamburg
Roman Hillmann is an architectural historian and critic who worked with architects in designing, and drew plans of antique, medieval, renaissance and modern architecture. He teaches at several Berlin Universities. Dr. Hillmann was born and raised in Hamburg and moved to Berlin in 1990. Here, he studied Classical Archaeology, History of Art and Conservation at the Free University and Technical University. During non-term periods, he made surveys and supervised Building Restoration and Structural Preservation in the Building Archaeology (“Bauforschung”) at the Bavarian State Office for the Conservation of Monuments. Dr. Hillmann was a Fellow at the DFG (German Research Foundation) in the Graduate Program “Historic Building Research – Historic Preservation – Art History” in Berlin from 2002 to 2005. While publishing, teaching, attending and speaking at conferences he discovered his interest in architecture as a cultural, social and technical context.
Dr. Hillmann's dissertation deals with “The First Post-War Modernity: Aesthetics and Perception of the Western-German Architecture 1945-1963”. He taught and teaches History of Architecture, Architectural Theories, Cultural History, Art History and History of Design and Aesthetics at Technical University Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin, and the University of Applied Science in Berlin. He also regularly guides English-speaking professors, students and businesspeople to new architectural sites in Berlin, such as Frank O. Gehry’s DZ Bank at Brandenburg Gate and the Crematorium in Berlin-Treptow by Axel Schultes