These coloured glass tile windows are ten a penny in Brandenburg, but every time I see one I wish I had a house in the country/dacha/local community centre with one on the side. The example above is from a house in Schlamau, and the larger wall window pictured underneath is from a building in a complex of largely abandoned GDR buildings in Schmerwitz. I’ve included more images of the building and the surroundings in the next post. 
I found these flower-shaped bricks on the entrance to a building in the GDR-tastic Buchbergerstrasse (formerly Eckertstrasse/Oberweg) Lichtenberg. I can’t find any information about who designed them, but have seen the same design on other buildings.
The building dates from the 1980s and now home to the ‘Berlin Rockhaus’, which rents out rehearsal rooms to musicians. The interior was partially renovated in 2000, but a look at the Rockhaus website suggests that it still has a strong whiff of GDR about it. It’s probably worth checking out, as is the street, an industrial estate which backs onto Bahnhof Lichtenberg. It looks like it’s remained largely untouched (unsullied!) by developers since the Wende. My kind of place, then!
I stumbled upon this amazing mural in the Gesamtkunstwerk that is Tierpark Zoo in Friedrichsfelde. The zoo has featured rather heavily in this blog, due to the abundance of fabulous East German design within its walls.
This mural decorates the wall of a small pavilion/shelter & easily overlooked if you’re not looking out for it. I’ve been unable to dig out any provenance info, but am going to check out a book about art in the Tierpark by its one time director Heinrich Dathe, which may provide some insight into its origins.
These pics, taken on a dingy day, without a flash and in a hurry, don’t really do the mural justice, so it’s worth going to check it out ‘in the flesh’. It’s especially worth visiting Tierpark now, as its magnificent wildcat house Alfred Brehm Haus (built 1956-1963) is set to undergo ‘environmentally-friendly’ renovation, which despite the fact that the Haus is protected, will invariably mean the loss of some of its original features.
…that if it’s East German public art, it’s probably not long for this world. This is a metal sculpture on the side of the condemned Haus der Statistik on Otto Braun Strasse.
It’s already been removed (see below). Which means you’ll have to make do with the pics above. Not really the same though, is it?
As promised, here are some images of Walter Womacka’s mural ‘Der Mensch dass Mass alle Dinge’ (Man, the measure of all things) being removed from the side of the Ministerium für Bauwesen in Breite Strasse last year.
The mural was mounted on the front of the building by Womacka and his students from the Kunsthochschule Weisensee (where he was rector) in 1968. It consisted of 350 copper panels covered in ceramic paint.
In summer 2010, Berlin city council announced that the building was due for demolition. It couldn’t find a home for Womacka’s mural (which is a whopping 15 x 6 metres) and was threatening to bin it, until WBM Mitte housing association stepped in at the last minute and agreed to cover the costs of removal and storage. It did so allegedly because Womacka had been one of its tenants since the mid-80s. WBM Mitte also owns the Haus des Lehrers on Alexanderplatz, which is decorated with Womacka’s iconic mosaic frieze, ‘Unsere Leben‘ (Our Life).
The mural was removed on 4th/5th October 2010. Each of the plates was taken off carefully and lowered down very unceremoniously in an Ikea bag. They were then packed into wooden crates. I expected an audience, but there was no one there, just me, a foreigner with a crap camera, snapping away. It was a bit of an undignified ending for the mural. However much of a stubborn old GDR apologist he was, I’m glad that Womacka didn’t live to see it happen.
The Womacka society had attached a series of posters to the surrounding fence, announcing the ‘Day of the Removal'(!) which included a biography and a list of his works already destroyed since the Wende, as well as the protected & endangered survivors. I was shocked to discover the relief on the Haus des Reisens on the list. No GDR era art, it seems, is safe, unless it’s already survived a renovation (see the mosaics on the Haus des Lehrers & Cafe Moskau).
An exhibition documenting the work of Kunst am Bau, a GDR artists’ collective, opens in Dresden this Saturday. KaB worked on many of the large scale urban developments in East Germany and shaped public art across the country . Formed in 1958, the group consisted of painters,architects, graphic designers, and ceramists. They produced around 2,500 works in Dresden, Halle, Leipzig & Berlin, including mosaics, murals, sculptures, fountains, molded walls (including the distinctive rippled walls), structural walls & playground features.
Despite being dependent on state patronage and approval, the group didn’t really subscribe to the official Socialist Realist style & embraced more radical styles such as abstraction and cubism. The work was space-age, utopian and pretty outlandish. Have a look at the elephant pictured below, built from prefabricated components:
The group was dissolved in 1990.
In years following the Wende, many of their works were destroyed and/or fell into disrepair.
The KiB exhibition brings together some of the KiBs surviving works, removed from their original architectonic contexts, photos of the ones which didn’t survive, as well as documents relating to the state commissions, and reflects the renewed interest in the once discredited visual culture of the GDR.
The exhibition is in their former studios in southern Dresden and runs til the 25. Sept.
This mosaic is located on the side of the entrance to Schillingstrasse 30. The building is home to the ex-communist Solidarity Housing Association, which owns a lot of towerblocks in the area.
I’ve seen an identical mosaic on a building on the Strasse der Pariser Commune, so it must have been serially produced, a bit like the tower blocks themselves.
This very striking wall and its ceramic sculptures are located in a very undignified position between two takeaways, a portaloo and a Plus supermarket in Schillingstrasse, Mitte. I can’t find any info about it anywhere. It’s pretty mad, radical design, even by East German standards. Schillingstrasse seems to have been a showcase for GDR design, with Cafe Moskau & Kino International at its northern end, this in the middle, and some great mosaics on the buildings at its southern end (see next post). This wall isn’t protected so unless the Denkmalschutz people get on the case, it may disappear – a lot of the surrounding area is still distinctly post-communist (see Berolinastrasse) and thus cheap, but also very central, making it prime demolition/redevelopment territory.
Former DDR Ministerium für Bauwesen, Breite Strasse, Mitte. Soon to be replaced by a building just like the one pictured opposite.This glorious monolith is the DDR Ministerium für Bauwesen (Building Ministry) and was designed by architect Rolf Göpfert in 1967/68.
The structure has some great cheeky little bits of deco, like the diamond shapes on the cornices.
Until the end of last year, the building’s facade also boasted a huge, colourful enamel Walter Womacka frieze (see post for info), which has now been removed. Thankfully, it’s in safe hands. After developers threatened to bin the frieze unless someone took it off their hands, the decidedly left-leaning WBM housing association kindly stepped in and bought it (can you imagine a London housing association doing the same thing???). I’m hoping it’ll pop up on some other facade in Berlin soon.
Oooh, cop a look at those cornices!
I always wanted to get into this building, which seems to have been empty for a while. The faded net curtains and photo of Walter Ulbricht in the front window certainly had me chomping at the bit, wondering what other pre-Wende joys might be discovered inside. I finally managed it, but it took Walter Womacka dying in order for it to happen.
After his death, the Walter Womacka association announced it would hold a commemorative film evening in the building’s lobby, which for me, felt a bit like Christmas had come early.
The building was cold, a bit damp and smelt very musty. I wanted to imagine that what I was smelling was an authentic whiff of GDR, and that we were the first people to enter the building since it had been vacated in the early 90s, although I know we weren’t. But even if it hadn’t been hermetically sealed since the collapse of communism, the lobby certainly felt ‘authentic’ – I swear there wasn’t one item of furniture in there which didn’t pre-date 1984.
Sadly, I didn’t manage to explore the rest of the building, as I was half of the audience and thought the organiser might notice if I dashed off to carbon date bits of furniture.
Street signs go wonky in anticipation of the impending development onslaught
I regret not having at least asked to have a peek round now, because the Ministry is now being gutted. Agh. Will post some pics soon, if I can bear to photograph the carnage.
This building on Klosterstrasse might not seem an obvious choice for a site focussing on design. But it has an interesting grid pattern on its side, which as well as having a certain aesthetic appeal, may even serve a practical function!
There were plans to demolish it and build some even blander offices in its place, but nothing seems to have happened yet.
GDR design 
