Some of my favourite Berlin buildings!

AEG Turbinenfabrik -- I've made two pilgrimages to see the Turbine Hall of the AEG Turbine Factory in Moabit. Designed by Peter Behrens in 1909, it is considered to be one of the pioneering works of modern architecture.

The Shell-Haus was built in 1931. I like the rippling facade and the wraparound windows. In the foreground is the Landwehrkanal, one of several large canals that flow through Berlin.

The Shell-Haus, now the offices of GASAG.

This office building is on the Potsdamer Straße. Compare and contrast with the nearby survivor of "Germania" (see that page)!

 This is a big and apparently empty building in the Nürnbergerstraße. I have no idea what it is -- but I like the typically 1930's "nautical" style.

Above and below: the former Ullstein-Haus -- the home of the Ullstein publishing empire confiscated by the Nazis. The size of this brick building has to be seen to be believed!

Another building by Peter Behrens -- the Alexanderhaus in the Alexanderplatz. One of two buildings he built there for a redevelopment in the 1920's, they have survived and are being restored themselves as part of a new major redevelopment of the area.

The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) in the Kulturforum, close to the Potsdamer Platz. Designed by the Bauhaus architect Mies van der Rohe and finished in 1968. I admire its austere clean simplicity.

The New National Gallery contrasted with the restored St Matthew's Church (Matthäuskirche) of 1844-46.

Further along the Landwehrkanal from the Kulturforum is the Bauhaus-Archiv. As well as housing a fascinating museum of the design and architecture of the Bauhaus movement, the building itself (based on a design by Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius) is a pleasure to walk around, both inside and outside!

The Le Corbusier Haus, just to the south of the Olympid Stadium. This gigantic block of flats, built to Le Corbusier's Unité d' Habitation concept of a self-sufficient housing estate contained in one block and designed to end the post-war housing shortage. (See also Berlin Panoramas.)

Another view, from the colonnade of the Olympic Stadium.

Here is the Planetarium on Prenzlauer Allee.

Below are photos of the Hufeisensiedlung ("Horseshoe Housing Estate") in Britz, south-western Berlin. Built by Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner during the 1920's on what was then open country, the estate is laid out around a large horseshoe shaped block of flats enclosing a garden with a small lake. Now that trees have grown up, there is very little sense of the plan when walking its streets. But the "horseshoe" itself is certainly still very impresssive.