Berlin Wall Competition

In Architecture

Posted: Jul 29th, 2009 / Last Edited: Jun 1st, 2010 Print

Description

Our interest in the Berlin Wall Project was in the permanent aspects of the political and physical division of the City. We were interested in its meaning to the future population and to the specific East/West political connotation.

Our proposal is a fragment of a new wall, itself an occupied zone. The proposed project creates a social conduit encouraging arms length debate and allowing for continuous human interaction. One occupies the space of the wall. Though free to occupy the wall and violate its boundaries, one is ultimately trapped within its confining and proscribed nature. Upon entry one has a sense of breaking rules or of violating accepted political conventions. Easterners pass across the space to the West (Westerners to the East) bridging the datum of the original wall (now a trench – an inverted negative wall). As one moves through the pedestrian walkways, this possibility recurs at regular increments as one is able to move perpendicular to the wall perceiving both East and West and enabling one to experience the city as a whole.

Under the current political circumstances, the project is anticipated to operate as a place for general social/cultural activity, accommodating vendors of all types, musicians, street theater, etc. The project’s external surfaces will undergo daily change as artists (West on East and East on West) work continuously.

The project is scaled to reflect its edge condition and its location adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate, and is conceived as an object structure stitching together the Tiergarten (on the West) and the DMZ emptiness (to the East). Our intention is to create a permanent, living monument which will concretize and reconnect the fissure which is the Berlin Wall.
Our interest in the Berlin Wall Project was in the permanent aspects of the political and physical division of the City. We were interested in its meaning to the future population and to the specific East/West political connotation.

Our proposal is a fragment of a new wall, itself an occupied zone. The proposed project creates a social conduit encouraging arms length debate and allowing for continuous human interaction. One occupies the space of the wall. Though free to occupy the wall and violate its boundaries, one is ultimately trapped within its confining and proscribed nature. Upon entry one has a sense of breaking rules or of violating accepted political conventions. Easterners pass across the space to the West (Westerners to the East) bridging the datum of the original wall (now a trench – an inverted negative wall). As one moves through the pedestrian walkways, this possibility recurs at regular increments as one is able to move perpendicular to the wall perceiving both East and West and enabling one to experience the city as a whole.

Under the current political circumstances, the project is anticipated to operate as a place for general social/cultural activity, accommodating vendors of all types, musicians, street theater, etc. The project’s external surfaces will undergo daily change as artists (West on East and East on West) work continuously.

The project is scaled to reflect its edge condition and its location adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate, and is conceived as an object structure stitching together the Tiergarten (on the West) and the DMZ emptiness (to the East). Our intention is to create a permanent, living monument which will concretize and reconnect the fissure which is the Berlin Wall.
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