After an inexcusably long break, I’m back! This is a mural which is located above the entrance to Paliluga nursery school on Palisadenstrasse in Friedrichshain. Although Paliluga’s website doesn’t contain any info about the building’s history, the architecture is unmistakably East German, so I think it’s safe to assume the rather retro-looking mural is too. I couldn’t get very close to it because the gates were locked, so once again, apologies for slightly ropey pic quality.
It’s not a very exotic example of GDR design, but it’s interesting looking, and that’s reason enough for this wall to be included here. I like the fact that instead of simply piling the bricks ontop of each other, whoever designed it decided to arrange thems with gaps, making it less monolithic and more decorative. It’s just a wall behind a railway station, and they didn’t have to do it. But they did. You’ll find it on the time-capsule-esque Lichtenberg street mentioned in the post below.
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.
East Germany’s most prominent artist, and the man behind many a brilliant mosaic,Walter Womacka, has sadly died. Gawd rest his soul.
Mosaic on the side of the fabulous Alfred Brehm Haus, an early 60s architectural marvel located in the Tierpark, East Berlin’s (better) answer to the Zoologischer Garten. Sadly, an old GDR building sitting untouched in the middle of a tourist attraction was too much for the city council to bear, and the Haus is set for renovation soon. Which will no doubt turn it from the architectural equivalent of a fine vintage into a horrid, cheap bottle of Liebfraumilch that no-one wants to drink. Except by people who don’t know any better. Prost!
GDR design 
