In the context of 11th week’s ARCH484 course, we have discussed Berlin and the issue of “Erasing the Urban Boundary” that took place after World War II in Nazi Germany. Dualities existed in terms of its regimen and this had also been seen in the urban typology of Germany and Berlin. After the impacts of the war, the reconstruction process had started and also in that phase two different ideologies had emerged. In that manner, East and West Berlin had been designed differently; collective planning had been adopted in the eastern side whereas western side was designed by the modernist architects with multi-storey public housing blocks. This condition had led to the unstoppable polarization between two sides; “capitalist West” and “communist East”. Through this tension, the construction of the Berlin Wall began to be built which split West Berlin from East Berlin by acting as a buffer zone. As a matter of fact, the existence and also destruction, absence of the wall affected the city’s sociological norms and housing policy. In accordance with these aspects, the case of Berlin has been found to be similar to Dogma’s proposal called “Field of Walls”. In that case also the existence of boundaries as the form of walls exist but in a more permeable way. Thus, mentioning of fluidity and mobility is also possible which is a distinct feature of the proposal. In addition to this, the strips that reach out and elongate throughout the boundaries and the openings that are visible on the walls assist in the definition of the fluidity. In that manner, the case of Berlin and Field of Walls disassociates since the wall in Berlin was constructed to strictly separate two regions without enabling any fluidity or mobility.
bilgesu · an architect and a researcher 