Hansaviertel Portraits

Where Utopian Visions of a New Way of Life Are Being Lived Today

A former debris-strewn wasteland in the inner city-some 300 out of 343 residential buildings were destroyed during the Second World War-the Hansaviertel is one of the most recognizable architecture projects of the postwar period in Berlin. In 1952, an international ideas competition was held under the title die stadt von morgen (the city of tomorrow); fifty-three architecture firms presented plans for the rebuilding of West Berlin, including leading practitioners of Western modernist architecture like Alvar Aalto, Werner Düttmann, Egon Eiermann, Walter Gropius, Arne Jacobsen, Oscar Niemeyer, and Max Taut. Construction based on their designs in the redevelopment area began in 1956, and thirty-six of the projects were realized. The result was a neighborhood for people and their needs-with plenty of greenspaces, flexible floorplans, commercial spaces, and shops selling essential goods and services. Visiting the area and its people today, one can still feel the designers' visionary resolve to establish new ways of residential living. Locals are united by their fascination with architecture and design and their love for their neighborhood, which over the decades has developed an authentic patina and now stands as witness to a key chapter in the city's more recent history.

Hansaviertel Portraits invites the reader on a stroll through Berlin's geographic center. Conversations explore ideas and visions for how to live and how architecture can accommodate them in a changing city with rapidly rising rents, residents finding themselves displaced to the periphery, and the resulting nostalgia for yesteryear's homes. Twelve locals open the doors to their apartments and share their very personal stories of life in the Hansaviertel.