IBA Apartment Buildings on Fraenkelufer, Kreuzberg

A whole terrace of buildings on Fraenkelufer, designed as part of the 1987 IBA (Internationale Bauaustellung) by Hinrich and Inken Baller, 1982-84.  The 1987 IBA was conceived as an ongoing design and research project, running from 1979 to approximately 1989.  When the wall came down, the ideas emerging from the IBA ran seamlessly into those of Critical Reconstruction.

It’s local to me, and there’s a bit more on it (and a lot more on other buildings close by) at this other post.

Main corner, on Fraenkelufer & Admiral Brucke (as ever when I go to take a snap on a sunny day, someone’s put some scaffold up)

For the 1987 Interbau, thinking had moved on from the Hansa quarter of the ‘57 Interbau (see previous blog on this) - the new blocks are carefully inserted between retained facades of 19th century apartments, with a large landscaped courtyard behind. It’s all unfashionably postmodern - hardline modernists shouldn’t scroll any further, you won’t like it.  But at the same time it’s quite genuine architecture. The wonky columns really are supporting the buildings, and it’s a patchwork, quirky development that I can imagine living in. 

The real strength though, as with many IBA 1987 projects (and later buildings) is the communal space created to the rear.  It’s inventively landscaped, semi-private, and well maintained.  You also get to see that the blocks are far more extensive than just the frontages on Fraenkelufer would suggest.

I’ve read, but not sure if geographically precisey true, that this particular site had already been cleared for a proposed motorway route in the 1970s.  The motorway was never built, which was just as well, as it’s inexplicable to me why the hermetically sealed island of West Berlin, as it was at the time, needed a huge orbital motorway at all.  Maybe it was so west Germans could drive round and round next to the Wall in their new cars, to create some Ossi envy.

 

View on the canal bank

Interior courtyard