Day 22   6/25/12

Back in berlin, we started off our day with a ride on the s-bahn followed by a walk to meet a man about a building. En route, we passed the Olympic stadium from the 1936 Berlin olypmics. Back to the building, it was one of the Unite de Habitation. Buildings by this name were part of a modernist residential housing design principle developed by Le Corbusier. The concept revolved around making the building a sort of neighborhood. Each floor was designed with a long hallway down the center called ‘streets’, and there was a market or grocery on the top floor. The other unique attribute was the versatility and functionality of the apartments. The apartment building was essentially constructed of a multitude of cubes and the owner could buy as many blocks as he was able and tear down walls and remodel and recombine any number of rooms to create a unique space.

We then walked around the Hansaviertel interbau, a quarter of Berlin that was rebuilt by the West and which became a center of prosperity and featured some interesting modern architecture; pictured here is the St. Laurentius Kirche.

In the afternoon we went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church; the two-spired church was damaged heavily in the allied air raids during the war, resulting in the destruction of one spire and damage to the other. The building has not been sufficiently repaired, but retains its damaged façade as a testament to the devastation of war. A new belfry with attached chapel was built in the 60’s designed by Egon Eiermann.

Day 23   6/26/12

The first stop of the day was at the Dutch Embassy located overlooking the Spree. It is an architecturally interesting building that defies the rigid building guidelines of the city while still adhering to their requirements. A spiraling walkway, often with glass floors, loops around the entire building. This walkway combined with the architect’s plan to have every department open and looking into another department was designed to show the openness of the Netherlands. A final element to note is the ‘diagonal void’ through the building, added so that the TV tower, a symbol of Berlin, could always be seen from the park by the Spree.

That afternoon we passed by the Red Rauhous on our way to the Karl-Marx-Allee, the socialist urban planning response to the West’s Hansaviertel. In a way the area symbolized the socialist regime, with elegant facades masking poor quality buildings.  We continued on to Treptower Park, the location of the giant Soviet memorial.

The statue of the soviat soldier dominated the landscape, holding a child in one arm, a sword in the other and crushing a swastika beneath his boot

Day 24   6/27/12

Today we did Checkpoint Charlie. The museum focused mostly on the oppression of the GDR, the Berlin wall, and the bids for freedom made by the East German people. While an interesting place, it was also one of the most tourist-packed places we went in Berlin. 

However, about halfway through the museum there is a small double staircase that for some reason most people do not perceive. It contains a good half of the museum, and, going up it I was happy to find some breathing room. This section of the museum contained a Ronald Reagan room (where I watched the entirety of his speech at the Berlin Wall) and rooms documenting the modern Berlin situation up to the last few years. Also in this ‘secret’ section of the museum were the original Checkpoint Charlie sign and a segment of concrete where one of the first white lines was painted indicating where the Berlin Wall would later stand.

That afternoon we walked to the nearby Berlin Wall Memorial & Documentation Center. This area retains a well-preserved area of the East-West boundary as well as stone paths marking where those famous escape tunnels lied underground.

Day 29   7/2/12

Today we met briefly to look at the smaller Soviet monument located in the Tiergarten; this monument, while smaller, was built immediately after the Soviets seized Berlin at the end of the war and used stones torn from Hitler’s Chancellery.

After that, we were dismissed to wander the city on our last day in Berlin.