Hansaviertel

Built for the International Building Exhibition in 1957, the Hansaviertel is a prime example of modern architecture and urban planning of the 1950s. Like its counterpart in the east, Karl-Marx-Allee, the large-scale development reflects two different political systems and their approaches to housing construction.

Rather than forming a single unified structure, the quarter consists of a dispersed ensemble of individual buildings and spatial ideas. More than 50 architects — including Alvar Aalto, Egon Eiermann, Walter Gropius, Arne Jacobsen and Oscar Niemeyer — contributed to the site as part of the “New Building Movement”.

The Hansaviertel marks the revival of an international modernism after the war. Its urban layout combines different housing typologies, from low-rise buildings and terraced houses to high-rise structures, arranged within a shared green and infrastructural framework.

HIGHLIGHTS
West Berlin in the 1950s Housing as a political and architectural project of the post-war period
Interbau 1957 An international exhibition of modern architecture and urban planning
Housing as variation From bungalow to high-rise within an urban ensemble

Project selection

Residential buildings Oscar Niemeyer I Walter Gropius I Arne Jacobsen I Sep Ruf I Alvar Aalto I van den Broek und Bakema I Egon Eiermann and more
Eternit House Paul Baumgarten
Giraffe House Gerhard Siegmann
Hansa Library Werner Düttmann
Akademie der Künste am Hanseatenweg Werner Düttmann
Berlin Pavillon Hermann Fehling, Daniel Gogel and Peter Pfankuch

Duration approx. 2.5 h