Ticket B, founding member of Guiding Architects, is now a member of Berlin’s senate comittee for better touristic access to the six Berlin Modernism Housing Estates, which are featured on the UNESCO world heritage list. These housing estates are exceptional not only because of their architectural importance, but also due to their good state of preservation.

Situation plan Hufeisensiedlung

The estates –  Gartenstadt Falkenberg (Tuschkastensiedlung), Schillerpark, Wohnstadt Carl Legien, Großsiedlung Britz (Hufeisensiedlung), Siemensstadt and Weiße Stadt – were built between 1913 and 1934. The architects of the modern movement responded to the lack of housing after World War I at the highest architectural level: modern, affordable flats with kitchens, bathrooms and balconies, in houses without backyards or side wings, which provided light, air and space for the inhabitants. The high quality of the architecture, its formal language, floor plans and urban design became a model for the entire 20th century.

Ticket B offers guided tours by bus and on foot, with apartment visits to all six projects, plus a seventh, which is not on the UNESCO-list, but still the most visited modernist settlement: Onkel Toms Hütte, designed by Bruno Taut, Hugo Häring and Otto Rudolf Salvisberg.

It is famous for its colourful façades, which were the cheapest and most successful method of providing the prefabricated houses with individuality. However, most of the houses are private property now and haven’t been renovated homogeneously, so the UNESCO-committe didn’t include this area.

In the neighbourhood of Onkel Tom there are also prominent villas of early modernism, such as Mies van der Rohe’s House Perls (1914-16) and House Werner (1927), which can also be visited with Ticket B.

Onkel Toms Hütte

Mies van der Rohe, Haus Perls

More information and text (in German) can be found at www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de

Posted by: TicketB

The Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum is the new central library of Humboldt University, located on famous old boulevard Unter den Linden near Museum Island and Brandenburg Gate. It is the biggest freehand library in Germany and contains 2 million books, all of them publically accessible and not in closed depots.
Berlin-based Swiss architect Max Dudler won the competition, in which 277 architects participated, with a typical „Berlin style“ rationalist building. Behind a strictly orthogonal façade, the visitor encounters the big reading hall, which refers to the terraces of the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis. The space is illuminated by natural roof light and contains green desks and lamps with stone covers for 250 people, all designed by the architect. The atmosphere of the hall breathes a similar spirit as the big library hall by Labrouste in Paris. Most of the 1250 workstations are located directly at the fassade with tremendous views over the city. Separate lockable cabins are also available for students who prepare final exams. Counting 5000 visitors a day, the library is such a succes that the administration is still working on stronger regulations for users. They like to reserve work stations in the morning by stacking piles of books on them and then leave for shopping…

picture: Stefan Müller

Posted By: ticket-b

The New Museum (Neues Museum) in Berlin, part of the Unesco World Heritage Museum Island, built by Andreas Schlüter in 1856 was heavily destroyed in World War II.
After 40 years being a ruin it is now renovated in an extraordinary way by David Chipperfield. About 4.000 visitors a day are fascinated by the Nofretete (Nefertiti) bust, the Greek and Aegyptian collection and the respectful restoration of the only museum with an original interior of the German Historism in the 19th century. The New Museum finally opened  on 16th October 2009.
The reconstruction of the New Museum is only a part of the general renewal of the Museum Island. In 2010 David Chipperfield will add a contemporary entrance building: The James Simon Gallery. Here will start the new underground „archeologic pathway“,  which will connect the four museums with a distinct thematic approach to each institution.
The first new building in the neighbourhood of the island by Chipperfield was the Art Gallery „Am Kupfergraben“, finished in 2007.
„Ticket B - Architectural Guided Tours in Berlin“ offers from now on special tours to the urban development of the Museum Island with short inside visits in parts of the museums in cooperation with the Foundation „Preussischer Kulturbesitz“.

Posted By: ticket-b.de

We already told you about the special Bauhaus-tours which our network partner Ticket B offers in Dessau this year. Now Ticket B also cooperates with Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, which shows a huge anniversary exhibition called “Modell Bauhaus“. Throughout the exhibition period – between 22 July and 4 October – Ticket B offers three special half-day tours to selected buildings in and around Berlin as well as a day trip to the Bauhaus city Dessau. These tours, guided by specialised architects who present interesting commentaries and anecdotes about the Bauhaus and related topics, lead to numerous historic and contemporary buildings and architectural projects.

And there’s a great new feature on the website of Ticket B: the tours are bookable online via PayPal for anyone who would like to participate.

Bauhaus School in Dessau

Café Kornhaus in Dessau

Villa on Rupenhorn peninsula, Berlin

Posted by: Ticket B

There’s a great new article on Guiding Architects on the website of the Goethe Institut, describing a tour in Berlin with Thomas Krüger of Ticket B and explaining what the aims of our network and guided tours are. And the best thing is: it’s available in English as well as German.

Posted by: guiding-architects.net

Ticket B, our network member in Berlin, organizes a special excursion to Tokyo from 14 to 21 March, 2010.

The excursion will be guided in German and English by Ulf Meyer, a German architecture journalist and Japan-expert who currently teaches at Kansas State University. The programme includes projects by Kenzo Tange, Kisho Kurokawa, Toyo Ito, MVRDV, SANAA, Tadao Ando, Foreign Office Architects, Kengo Kuma, Herzog & de Meuron, but also an early-morning visit of the Tokyo fishmarket and a trip to the town of Kamakura. Individual extensions of the tour to e.g. Kyoto are possible.

For the detailled programme and any other information that you might require, please contact Ticket B: info@ticket-b.de.

Posted by: Ticket B

Judging from recent events, one can get the impression that Berlin is on the way back to the past, steering further and further away from contemporary architecture. 10 years after the opening of Potsdamer Platz and 20 years after the fall of the wall, Berlin seems to have become a playground for reconstruction.

The upcoming reconstruction of the Berlin castle, which was demolished in 1950, the rebuilding plan for Schinkel’s Building Academy, demolished in 1960, and the replica of the historic Stadtkommandatur and Hotel Adlon at Brandenburg Gate apparently symbolize a deep desire to recover a beautiful past.

Nevertheless, there is a growing contemporary architectural scene in Berlin, but its building sites are hidden and far less mediatized than the castle replica. Read the rest of this entry »

A German legend will celebrate its 90th birthday this year: the Bauhaus in Dessau. Recently, Berlin-based architect and critic Philip Oswalt was appointed as new director of the school. He will assume his post in March.

To celebrate this, Ticket B from Berlin will organize a special tour to Dessau, including visits to the Bauhaus building and villas by Walter Gropius, rowhouse settlement Siedlung Törten and, to introduce some contemporary eco-architecture, the Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt) by sauerbruch hutton architects.

For dates and prices, please contact Ticket B: info@ticket-b.de

Posted by: Ticket B

One of the Guiding Architects Network’s most faithful regular clients is German company Sto AG. Our members have been organizing guided tours for the StoDesign Forum for many years. The tours are aimed at professionals from the architectural field, and the guides are mostly German-speaking.

Here’s the list of Sto excursions on offer in 2009:

Barcelona: 25 - 28/03/2009
Bilbao - San Sebastian: 22 - 26/04/2009
Vienna - Brno: 20 - 23/05/2009
Copenhagen - Malmö: 03 - 06/06/2009
Cracow - Gdansk: 24 - 27/06/2009
Berlin: 01 - 03/07/2009
Basel - Zurich: 16 - 19/09/2009

For more information or reservations, please go to the website of StoDesign.

Posted by: guiding architects