How to Commemorate a Dictatorship.

When trying to honor their history and establish a sense of national identity, Berliners have one major obstacle. How to remember the two dictatorships of the past century. When concerning the Nazis and the Third Reich, the approach has long been the same. Destroy everything and act as if they never existed.

This approach, however, is quite naive. It is necessary for one to first accept the past in order to overcome it. This is what current generations are finally beginning to realize and slowly filling the void in German history lasting from 1930 until 1945. This task is quite hard as Germans still have a strong fear of the past repeating itself. Any sort of monument or museum directly associated with Nazism could provide a possible rallying point for Neo-Nazis. Therefore, Germans have chosen to commemorate the victims of the Third Reich as well as those who opposed them. This is apparent through numerous Holocaust Memorials, etc ... as well as monuments paying tribute to men like von Staufenberg who attempted to ended Hitler’s reign. This still is not enough. In order too fully understand a crime, one must understand both the victim and their oppressor.

This task is very difficult as most evidence of Nazism was been destroyed shortly after the war and one certainly does not want to rebuild it. I do not necessarily disagrees with the decision to destroy these buildings, especially those directly associated with Hitler, but who is necessarily correct in saying which buildings are Nazi. Is it the building’s style or is it its historical significance. If one desired to go out and destroy every utilitarian building in the city, it would cost a considerable sum and wipe out a large chunk of the city. Instead, people must realize that everything built during the Third Reich was not directly linked to its evils. The few areas that are left that are directly related to the crimes committed should not be destroyed but saved to better understand this point in history. The one location that seemed to realize this was the Topographies of Terror. Historians and archaeologists manage to save a small chunk of the SS headquarters and opened them to the public along with an exhibition explaining the heinous acts committed here. Though it may be difficult for German to confront, things like this will allow them to move on despite this chapter in their history.

The more difficult task of the German people still awaits. How to commemorate the city’s division and the Communist dictatorship. This question is slightly more difficult than that of the Nazis as the Communist can be portrayed as both heroes and criminals. During the Third Reich, the Communists were one of the main opposers to the Nazi Party. Also, the Russian Communists were the first to invade Berlin and widely given credit for defeating the Nazis. If the story ended here, there would no doubtably be Communists statued and memorials littering the city. However, when the Communists seized control of East Germany following the war, things took a turn for the worse. Communists took away most of the citizens rights and are responsible for building the Berlin Wall which completely divided the city. The imprisoned numerous wall jumpers and killed several as well why they tried to escape to the West.

The dictatorship end thankfully in 1990. Now Germans must accept their reunification while still acknowledging their once divided state. Possibly the hardest decision is deciding what remains and monuments on the Communists are worth keeping. Obviously the first monument of Communist rule to come down was the wall itself. Other monuments were not immediately destroyed. Some of the Russian’s monuments built just after the war like Treptower Park were forbidden to be destroyed as they marked the resting place of thousands of Russian soldiers. Other like monuments to Stalin and Marx were subject to great debates. Now most Germans realize that destruction does not free them from their past. Therefore, several monuments like the one to Karl Marx on Karl-Marx Allee were saved and serve as a reminder of past events. The treatment of these monuments show how much the city of Berlin has grown and transcended its dark past.

Last Post from Germany. Tschus Deutschland. Hello America!

Well fans like every good story, this too must have an end. Our last two days in Berlin we mainly spent hitting the few things we missed throughout the month.

Our first stop Monday morning was to the German History Museum (above) by I.M. Pei. Pei is the architect of the Meyerson Symphony Hall in Dallas as well as a recipient of the Pritzker Prize. The addition to the old German History Museum worked quite nicely as acted as its own entity while still respecting and complimenting the old Museum. The collection inside was quite expansive covering thousands of years of German History. Needless to say, I had to do a sort of sort of drive by scan of the museum as we only had an hour.

After lunch and a church visit, we finished up our day at most repulsive building of the trip. The Wissenschaftszentrum (above) was a post modern "treasure" by architect James Sterling. From the color to the random historical motifs, everything just felt wrong. We spiraled up through the library, I felt as though I died more and more at each floor. Granted this building was partially visited as an architectural equivalent of the show "What Not to Wear," so I don't feel guilty ranting about my dislike for this project. I think all students on the trip in future should definitely go see this project so they can further appreciate the good architecture throughout.

After a good night sleep to recover from the horrors of the Post Modern nightmare, we spent our last day on Museum Island. In short, Museum Island is a giant German treasure chest of five museums displaying all the artifacts looted from other countries over the last few centuries. Here you can find artifacts from Egyptian, Roman, and Islamic history dating back thousands of years. Probably the crown jewel of Museum Island is the Pergamon Alter (below). Once of the Seven Wonders of the World, the alter now sits in a museum in the middle of Berlin. It was a really bizarre exhibit as the entire museum was built for the very purpose of housing the alter. Also in the museum was the Ishtar Gate. Once the major gate into Babylon, the gate now resides in a side room of a German museum.

After leaving the Pergamon Museum, I found it appropriate to take one last visit to one of "The Man's" buildings. The Altes Museum (below) is widely considered Schinkel masterpiece, as it stands at the front entrance to Museum Island. I, along with several other students, have a particularly strong interest in the building after spending all night drafting its plans and sections. Like all of Schinkel's work, most of the finishes are faux, but its still an impressive feat of architecture for its time.

We then ended our day touring the Reichstag, providing an appropriate end to our journey at the location where we began (cue snake eating tale analogy). Despite having a seemingly busy schedule at times, I found this trip to be a truly life changing experience. The amount of knowledge I gathered will continue to resonate for years to come. But a month away has began to take its toll and I'm ready to be home.

New Roommates?...

Kind of irrelevant to the educational perspective of the trip but I feel it is an interesting story nonetheless. Yesterday, Monday July 5, Andrew and I were off on an innocent trip to the grocery store to replenish our supplies of Coca-Cola and sweet tea after a long day on the town. To our surprise there was a rather hairy Serbian gentleman standing in our hallway when we arrived back at our apartment. Its no surprise that we were a little shocked and were preparing for the worst. However, he quickly smiled and introduced himself as our new roommate. Still a little shocked but not wanting to be rude, we welcomed him and exchanged some awkward conversation before he left to explore the town. Now since we were leaving in two days, I did not want to press the issue so I simply decided to sacrifice my room and sleep in the living room. Nothing against Alexander (the Serbian house guest), but I'm not completely familiar with European customs nor am I completely comfortable sharing a bed with a complete stranger so the living room was my best bet.

Shortly after Alexander's departure, however, we had a second visitor. This time it was a young man from what we are assuming was Slovenia but weren't entirely certain because of his accent. This is when we realized something was wrong. We had come to accept Alexander and were almost looking forward to hanging out with him but now we were out of beds. So I promptly marched downstairs and visited the apartment office to clear up this little fiasco. When I first informed management of our house guests, they kind of laughed saying that it was not possible. After convincing them that I was tell them the truth and not simply tripping out on hallucinogens, they proceeded to call the local school and see what was going on. Turns out, the school and the apartment had mixed up some paper work and double booked our apartment. It was a quick fix as they just gave them another apartment across the street. The situation was not completely resolved, however, as I had to somehow explain to the second guest, who spoke no english, that there was a mix up and that we were not simply kicking him out.

So instead of risking a conflict, I took Fabio (I called him this because I never really caught his name) to the office so they could deal with it. On the way I decided to try and converse with him in what I have come to find to be the international language. Futbol. So I begin simply saying the names of teams in the World Cup and tried to gauge his reaction. If he laughed, I laughed, if he scowled, I scowled. Luckily this lasted long enough to reach the office. Once there, management explained to him the issue and the problem was solved. The two new roommates moved out and we continued our night as usual.

The Wall Jumper

Disclaimer: To all those casual readers looking for personal updates, stories, pictures, etc...this is not it. This, however, is an intellectual response to the assigned reading “The Wall Jumper” and its relevancy to our experiences in Berlin.

“The Wall Jumper” is most like a series of short stories of individuals living in a divided Berlin in the second half of the 20th century. In a way, its almost like a modern day take on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Like Chaucer, Schneider uses his characters to paint a political and social portrait of a divided Berlin. The narrative begins as one flies into Berlin and how one must fly over the wall three times before landing at Tegal International in West Berlin. The narrator then goes on to express the lack of understanding of the city’s separation by outsiders as a traveler wished to simply take a taxi from East Berlin to the West. This, even today, is still the mindset of most visitors to Berlin. I know when I first arrived I could not tell one side from the other apart from an occasional brick line delineating the walls former location. After living here a month, that is no longer the truth. Signs of separation are now blatantly obvious from things like the architecture to stores and even the people seem slightly different. “The Wall Jumper” was a very difficult read as it was constantly bouncing all over in an erratic fashion with seemingly no motive. It was not until the end of the book did I realize that it was intentional. Through his stories, the narrator was able to express his own uncertainty in the city’s division. Some stories would preach on the stability and reliability of the East while other would speak of the luxuries and freedoms in the West. Wall or no wall, the city was divided mentally by the ideas in which their governments instilled upon them. It is this mental wall that is really the focus of the story. I believe that this wall still exist today in much of the older generations as they have been unable to break down their borders and completely accept the reunified Germany. The younger generations give some sign of hope, however. Especially now during the World Cup, the younger citizens are taking up their flags and showing their German pride, unaffected by the former division.

Amsterdam: home of a lot of things not appropriate for a school sponsored trip.

Let me start in saying that Amsterdam is not meant to be experienced in the time frame of a day and a half. There is just far too much to see, do, etc... So instead of trying, I decided to hit the architecture/cultural highlights giving myself a little time to relax a little as well. So I present Amsterdam, in a nut shell.

The sign above may seem like a quick, touristy snap shot on the way into town but it was actually in between our hotel and the nearest tram stop. So in case you can't fill in the blanks, our hotel was a little far out. However, the commodities offered by the hotel well made up for it as they had air conditioning and black out shades, both of which I thought were outlawed in Europe. So a three quarter mile walk and a thirty minute tram ride later we were in Amsterdam.

One of the main presences dominating the coastline of Amsterdam, is that of the New Metropolis Science and Technology (above) or NEMO for short. NEMO was designed by the renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano. The project was very reminiscent of the Phaeno Science Center by Zaha Hadid as they both had similar programmatic requirements and both were meant to resemble ships. Between the two I much prefer Piano's project as it seems to function better as a public space as well fitting into its surrounding context.

At the end of the path leading to NEMO, one is confronted with this blobby, shed looking building called ARCAM which acts as Amsterdam's architecture center. ARCAM was designed by Rene van Zuuk and has two glazed facades connected by flowing, corrugated steel exterior. Due to weird hours (1-5pm), I was unable to go inside but it appeared fairly regular through the windows.

Next on the list was the Amsterdam Public Library (above) by Jo Coenen. I really felt experienced this building as I sat in the restaurant downstairs and enjoyed an ice cold cola before I continued on my journey.

Across the water from the library and NEMO is the Music Building (above) by 3XN whose exhibition we saw at the Aedis gallery the week before. The coolest part of the building to me was the large public space created by the overhang on the glazed facade. Their use of tectonics and details can also be commended as it added a great bit of interest to the a rather simple form.

After a mile and a half walk or so, I managed to find Steven Holl's Sarphatistraat Offices (above). Due to a gate with sharp object atop, I was only able to see the building from across the canal. But one can get a pretty good idea of whats going on from here. Its a fairly simple box with strategically places windows and an oxidized copper exterior. Modest and elegant at the same time.

After heavily photographing the Steven Holl project, I hopped aboard the number 10 tram and took it down to the museum and fashion district. Going into the fashion district was probably my only mistake of the trip. I was surrounded by all sorts of big name designers with sale stickers on their windows, I thought I was in heaven. However, I was quickly brought back down to earth when I realized that even the sale prices were out of budget. So I managed to find an overpriced Burberry shirt on sale and bought it to get my fix. After that I got out of there before the devil on my shoulder told me to buy anything else. I then met back up with several other students at the Van Gogh Museum (above) before we got on a train to the Institute for Sound and Vision.

The Institute for Sound and Vision (above) was probably the highlight of the trip. Designed by Neutelings Riedijk Architects, the institute serves as both the archives and museum for the Dutch media. The exterior facade is really the most incredible part of the building as it consists of a screen of colored glass imprinted with famous images from Dutch television. Its not until one is up close until they can truly understand the beauty of the textures sweeping across the buildings exterior. Inside the lobby is really an out of body experience a the light passes through the facade and begins reflecting off of other surfaces. I must say this building had a lot of hype going in and it definitely lived up to it. Pictures cannot begin to explain the space created within this building.

Lastly, what trip to Amsterdam could be complete without a little harmless sightseeing and a casual stroll or two through the Red Light District. I will say the Red Light District didn't not quite live up/down to its Hollywood reputation but still interesting experience for those above the age of 18 (21 in some jurisdictions). So now that the architecture is done, I leave you all with the more tourist friendly shots.

End of the Last Full Week.

The week is beginning to wind down and the weekend cannot come fast enough. After getting to sleep in a bit, we hopped aboard a U Bahn to see the Dutch Embassy (below) by Rem Koolhas.

The embassy was a really well done building that utilized all 4 corners of its site while at the same time not feeling overly dense or large. Comically Koolhas manage to use two materials (aluminum and Teak) that are normally forbidden in Berlin but since it is an embassy, it doesn't fall under German jurisdiction. The embassy is situated along the River Spree overlooking a canal built by the Dutch some time ago. As one ascends through the building, they are consistently greeted with new spaces as no room in plan repeats itself. Also, Koolhas did a wonderful job framing the view of the television tower in the distance. And if all this was not enough, the tour ended in the faculty lounge where they had a ping pong table. Its just my opinion but I think no matter how good or bad a building may be, a table tennis table always makes it better.

After lunch we wondered over to Karl Marx Allee (above) where we looked at the architecture and urban situation of the former East Berlin. Strangely enough, it was actually quite pleasant. I'm not quite certain if that makes me a Communists or not but everything was clean, well organized and just looked as though someone had some idea of urban planning when they designed it. It was quite the foil from the Hansaviertel we saw on Monday.

We then finished up the day visiting the Russian monument in Treptower Park (above). The monument was very impressive as it towered over the rest of the park. It was laid out quite nicely too as one could not see it from the street so it almost surprises you when you first see it down its long alley.

The following day (Thursday July 1) we got to go to Checkpoint Charlie, home of the few, the proud, the Germans holding American flags. Now just for clarification, Charlie is not actually a person but the third letter in the phonetic alphabet table following alpha and bravo. Checkpoint Charlie was the passage to West Berlin located in downtown so it was naturally one of the most controversial. The museum we visited was once a mans apartment that quickly grew to take over the entire building. Inside was everything from Berlin Wall art to a room devoted entirely to Ronald Reagan.

After a bite, we got to go see the IBA housing project in West Berlin. Most of the housing blocks are located within walking distance to the wall and were one last attempt of the West to show their dominance over the east. Many famous architects were allowed to participate with some of the notable being Rem Koolhas, Peter Eisenman, John Hejduk and Zaha Hadid (above). Though she does not usually claim it, this was Zaha's first built work. Because she did not have a large office at the time of the project, most of the final design was altered by a local firm.

To end the week, we visited the Berlin Wall Memorial. Here, a large stretch of the wall is still intact with large, flanking, metal walls on each end to keep it isolated like it would have been when Berlin was still split. Also near the sight was the Chapel of Reconciliation which was built anew after the original fell several decades ago. Instead of honoring the church's original style, they decided to start from scratch and built this love chapel consisting of wooden slats and compressed earth.

Day Trip to Dresden

Today we went on our last class sponsored excursion to the city of Dresden, Germany. Prior to the train ride, however, the class made a trip altering discovery. The McDonalds in the Hauptbahnhof had ice and free refills. Now to all those reading in this from America, you may not realize the significance of this. Well just to inform you, Germany (and most of Europe) have not excepted the advent of ice in ones beverage as well the concept of free refills. Therefore, I found it was the American way to enjoy an icy cold cola before the train ride.

The first building we saw in Dresden was the UFA Cinema Center (above) by Coop Himmelblau. Usually I find there buildings incredibly intriguing and well done but this one did not satisfy. At first glance it appeared cool and dynamic how they were using the lobby of the theater as a sort of spectacle but once one started analyzing the details they realize thats its just an erratic mess. For the stair alone I counted 5 different types of connections to perform the same task. I'm no big shot architect but even I know thats bad. So either they were purposely being scatterbrained for some "deconstructivist" reason or they just told the contractor to "make it work." Either way the final product was disappointing.

Next was the VW Glass Factory (above). This building was alright as all it was was a glass box with some irregular forms plugged in. So not bad just not as phenomenal as it could have been.

The next building was meant to simply be a walk by, however, we were lucky enough to receive an impromptu tour from an employee. The school, St. Benno Grammar School (above), was designed by Gunter Behnisch who also design the Academy de Kunst near our apartment. The school was really well done all the way down to the details with a fantastic atrium and roof garden.

After eating eating at "Schitz " for lunch we walked over to this new Synagogue. It was a really nice subtle building which rotated from the site geometry to the orientation at which to pray.

Last we got to take a tour of the Semper Opera House. And I know some of you are saying to yourselves, "thats a really pretty old building," and you my friend have been "Schinkelled." Schinkelling refers to the late architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel who commonly used fake finishes rather than the real thing. In other words, it is an architecture of lies. In his defense, this was a common practice of the time period but still a cop out in my opinion. Either way this building was built in the 1950s after it was bombed in WWII rather than the era its exterior suggest. This has become common practice in most of the heavily bombed German cities we have seen and I do not believe it was necessarily the right thing to do. I can appreciate clinging to one's history and wanting to honor but building a replica is not doing that. I think that they could have instead built a completely new building that still honored the old traditions without copying them.