PLATTENBAU
Repetition and homogeneity upon a landscape of tabula rasa
A sea of block buildings floats above grassy fields; unsupported from beneath; the middle-class nuclear family is repeated within
Repetition and homogeneity both in architectural form and the social and cultural environment it intended to produce
Colour on the block’s surfaces, counteract the ominous homogeneity
People; segregated and disconnected from one another
Apartment buildings; segregated and disconnected from society
Repetition and homogeneity upon a landscape of tabula rasa
GlogauAIR Open Studios | Exhibition
Scenography – Sculpture – DEC2022
Scenography and sculpture for Plattenbau, an installation part of a larger research, architecture, and art project titled The City Shaped
Photographer : Beatrice Lezzi
Location : GlogauAIR | Berlin
Project Background
Bruno Flierl, a German architect, and architecture critic stated that ‘architecture and society are reciprocally bound together…. Once created, architecture has the effect of either cultivating or inhibiting the communal practice of humans’ lives, their existence, and their consciousness.’
The City Shaped_Berlin is an ongoing project which investigates the physical shaping of Berlin’s urban and social fabric. Berlin’s built condition is inherently tied to the social, political, and economic fluctuations of the past two centuries. During the cold war, architecture and ‘urban planning proved to be one of the most important ways that both sides postured for dominance…’ (Ladd, 1997; Storm, 2001), where the physical fabric becomes material propaganda. Housing on both sides were used as avenues to express such dominance and power, while also physically controlling the ways their inhabitants lived.
The Plattenbau is an example of such housing; directly translated as ‘panel building’, these buildings were almost entirely prefabricated off site. This building typology proliferated the landscape of the German Democratic Republic on a large scale, with 1.9 million state built apartments constructed in East Germany between 1972 and 1980. Neighbourhoods, such as Marzahn in Berlin, were built almost entirely with this type of prefabricated construction. The Plattenbau typology and its impact on the physical and social fabric of Berlin is explored in the installation titled Plattenbau.
