WerkBundCity Berlin

12627 Berlin: (not realized). 33 architectural firms from Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, among others, presented the design of WerkBundStadt Berlin. The plan was to build 1,100 new apartments in 38 buildings on 2.8 hectares of land. A critique of it in the deutsche bauzeitung (db) recalls the historical heritage in which the project stands: "It is laudable that the Deutscher Werkbund is speaking out with a contribution. After all, it is precisely the Werkbund housing estates from Stuttgart to Breslau, Prague, Vienna and Zurich that stand for the experimental living worlds of modernism. It was about housing for the subsistence level, small apartments, variable floor plans, new building materials and prefabrication, and last but not least about the coexistence of generations and society." The WerkBundStadt is quite clearly a break in content from the previous less dense WerkBundSiedlungen and for this reason alone an important statement, especially with regard to the mix of uses and building density.

From the point of view of sustainability, the designs are boring. Unfortunately, the designers make it too easy for themselves by treating the issue solely with the concept of natural ventilation and a high structural density. In this way, the WerkBundStadt falls far behind the standards for sustainable neighbourhoods and settlements that have been developed in recent decades.

In this respect, it is not really a great loss that this building exhibition was no longer pursued in 2018 by the owner of the property. For if the WerkBundStadt had remained as it was, the building exhibition would have been a probably interesting collection of contemporary architectural sculptures on an urban scale, but it would have lacked central themes of the 21st century.

Address:

Quedlinburger Street, 12627 Berlin

Links
Uli Hellweg ( 2019-07-01 db 08|2019): How an urban vision becomes an urban planning glitch:
www.db-bauzeitung.de/...keine-stadt-schon-gar-keine-werkbundstadt
Blog with many photos about the developments (until the end of 2016): www.architektur-urbanistik.berlin/...werkbundstadt...
A review of WerkBundStadt in the db (12/2016): www.db-bauzeitung.de/...