Gropiusstadt in Berlin is probably Europe's most famous apartment block. It owes its fame, among other things, to the fact that it is where the plot of the novel "We, the Children of Zoo Station" is set, and later became the setting for both the film and the TV series based on the book. Dense, overscaled, concrete. How has Walter Gropius's utopian estate changed over the years?
estate-experiment
Gropiusstad was created as an experiment. Walter Gropius' visionary idea was to create a true utopia. Did he succeed in doing so? The experiment certainly proved what the real needs of urban residents are, but the settlement itself did not provide them. Endless concrete. This is where the main character of the revolutionary novel "We Children of Zoo Station" lived .
This documentary, published in 1978, sold five million copies, and was based on the story of teenage drug addict Christiane Felscherinow, her mother, as well as police officers, therapists and people, met by the book's authors, also connected with the girl's criminal life in West Berlin.
The utopian estate plays an important role in the novel, and at the same time provides an unusual mirror of unfulfilled dreams. The story begins when, in 1968, the desire for social advancement attracted a married couple with two daughters to the Gropiusstadt apartment block in Neukölln on the outskirts of West Berlin, close to the Berlin Wall. Like its creator, an architect, the residents of the housing development naively believed in a better, even utopian tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the block of apartments rather took the form of a gloomy ghetto, filled with 45,000 tenants, most of whom occupied social housing. Gropiusstadt did not respond to the needs of the people, providing nothing but shelter, devoid of greenery, squares, places to play and meet.
archive photos | YouTube
Why was Gropiusstad built?
The city, which had been largely destroyed, needed living spaces after the war. For now. In 1957, the architect, considered one of the fathers of modernism and founder of the most famous school - Bauhas - took on a commission from the city government. Walter Grupius was to design a modern housing development in the southeastern part of Berlin, in the former agricultural areas of the villages of Britz, Buchow and Rudow. The architect planned a new system of blocks, comfortable and friendly.
Gropius gets a free hand and the opportunity to involve his colleagues from TAC in the work. In addition to the general idea, they are responsible together for the design of the central section intended for diverse development - from low-rise multifamily houses to thirty-story skyscrapers. The former on the outskirts, the larger ones oriented toward the center, where recreational areas are envisioned. Eight-nine thousand apartments, a scheme referring to the honeycomb-like layout favored by Gropius. The estate is to combine "various elements of traditional city life: with the criteria of modern urban planning. - Bogna Chomątowska writes, in her book "Betonia. A House for Everyone" (Czarne Publishing House )
bird's eye view | YouTube
what went wrong?
A fatal example of conflict between an architect and the city authorities. This time it was Walter Grupius who had to step down and change the concept, which was not to the liking of those in power in Berlin. The original concept of the grand was to create an estate - a garden on the plan of a semicircle with numerous traffic routes and green areas. The city authorities, on the other hand, wanted to create as many apartments as possible as quickly as possible. And so Walter Gropius revised the project, replacing greenery and space, with massive buildings.
Once again his plans had to change when the architect learned that in August 1961, just a few dozen meters from the planned housing development, the Berlin Wall would be built. Gropius' model apartment block, in order to avoid proximity to the concrete wall, had to be re-planned so that the same number of apartments would fit in a smaller area. And so the blocks were built even taller than planned and even closer together. Berlin's bedroom community has gained 19,000 apartments on a record-small land area.
from afar new and neat
One day the sofa, beds and sideboard were loaded onto a truck and taken to one of the high-rise buildings in the Gropiusstadt district. There we occupied a two-and-a-half-room apartment on the eleventh floor. All the wonderful furniture my mother talked about wouldn't even fit in that half of a children's room. Gropiusstadt was a skyscraper for forty-five thousand people, with lawns and shopping malls in between. From a distance, everything looked new and well-kept. But when you stepped between the blocks, everywhere stank of piss and shit," reads the book "We, the Children of Zoo Station.
trailer for the latest HBO series | YouTube
Today Gropiusstadt is located in the administrative district of Neukölln.
