Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 1887 – 27 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier (), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, and he designed buildings in Europe, Japan, India, and North and South America.
Unité d'Habitation of Berlin
The original name of the building was "Unité d’Habitation, type Berlin" and is a variation of Le Corbusier's concept of a Radiant City or Housing Unit. It is now known as Corbusierhaus. This particular building was part of the planning efforts for an international residential housing exhibition in Berlin in 1957, the (Interbau)57 or IBA 57. Large number of the leading international architects of the modernist era were invited to design and build residential housing units in the Hansaviertel in West Berlin. Big stars of the time came to Berlin and created themes modern versions of social housing. Walter Gropius, Oscar Niemeyer, Max Taut, Frei Otto, Aalvar Aalto and many participated. The post war isolation of West Berlin had made it difficult to rebuild the city and by the 1950's there was still a huge demand for housing and many parts of the city were still in ruins. At the same time the East German government with support from the soviets had built a whole new housing section in East Berlin called the Karl-Marx-Allee. Bauhaus architects who had stayed in eft Germany were leading these efforts, although the style of these buildings was Socialist realism or Neoclassicism and not modernist while the urbanism was modern. In an effort to compete with the East German accomplishment and also to supply affordable housing to West Berliners the Senate of West Berlin together with the West German Government created the IBA. A special housing law , the LEX IBA, was created especially for the international architects. This law was more open to ideas that were not compliant with the local building code of the time. Le Corbusier had just completed his Unité in Marseille in 1952 and it was arguably the most famous social housing project in the world and it was especially him who was invited to participate in the IBA. Walter Gropius said about the Unité: "Any architect who does not find this building beautiful, had better lay down his pencil." Corbusier's idea was to "provide with silence and solitude before the sun, space and greenery, a dwelling which will be the perfect receptacle for the family", and to "set up, in God's good nature, under the sky and in the sun, a magisterial work of architecture, the product of rigour, grandeur, nobility, happiness and elegance". Another variation of the Unité had been almost finished in Nantes-Rez and it was clear that it was possible to create another copy in Berlin. However the building's mass was deemed much to large for the city center of Berlin and another location further outside the city was considered. Corbusier had the choice between a few empty lots the city had to offer and he finally chose the site between the Olympic Stadium of the 1936 German Olympics and the very big mountain of rubble of the ruins of the demolished city buildings of WWII. The site is called „Heilsberger Dreieck“, a triangle between Heilsberger Allee (today Flatowallee) and S-Bahn-Trasse. It is located closely to the Heerstrasse which connects in a straight line to the Brandenburg Gate and the Berliner Schloss. Conception for the building started in 1956 and the original plans show a building very similar to the Unité at Nantes-Rez. The building site is a sandy ground and the pilots on the ground floor had to be doubled in order to create a stable structure. Most of the big ideas of the Unité in Marseille and Nantes were part of the Plan in Berlin. An accessible roof terrace, a kindergarten, stores and businesses on the 5th floor and a social service areas throughout the building. However the authorities in Berlin and the developer cancelled most of these amenities. Corbusier fought very hard to keep the buildings elements in the planning but he eventually failed due to insufficient contracts. He had left the planning of the interior of the building to the Berlin authorities and he was only in charge of the design of the exterior structure of the building. However even the structure of the building was altered. A lengthy fight in the press and media of the time was fought about the ceiling height and other issues of the building. The result was that Corbusier's 226cm height was changed to 250cm. This change resulted in a modification of the entire building structure and of the apartments. In an attempt to recreate the golden section between apartment height of 266cm and width of 399cm, the width of the apartments was widened which made the entire building wider and higher. The interior of the apartments and hallways are similar in plan to Corbusiers Unité in Marseille and Nantes but the open plan was not realized. The Berlin Building Department deemed it not legal to combine living areas such as kitchen and living room and definitely permitted can open connection of living areas and bedrooms.