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Exhibition

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PHOTO GALLERY: SONAMBIENTE BERLIN TXL

From August 12 – September 5, 2021, the sound festival Sonambiente took over Berlin’s recently decommissioned Tegel Airport (TXL). Various sound-based installations took over the airports corridors, gates, and waiting rooms. As the airport saw its final flight in November 2020, and was fully decommissioned in May 2021, the building remained relatively intact, though informational signs and installed businesses (such as in-terminal restaurants) had been deconstructed, and some of the exterior facades had begun to show signs of wear.

John Peck
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WERNER DÜTTMANN: MAKING BERLIN MODERN

MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE IN Berlin is, understandably, a subject heavy with the weight of history. The decades spent rebuilding from the devastation of WWII while split down the middle by two hostile powers meant that, for many building projects, aesthetics played a distant secondary role to functionality. Nonetheless, the severely limited building resources of both East and West did not stop the proliferation of bold, elegant Modernist constructions on both sides of the Wall. With entire neighborhoods in ruins and a postwar population in desperate need of housing and infrastructure, the buildings would be build regardless; the question for posterity was who could transcend the limited resources provided and make a lasting aesthetic impression on the cityscape.

John Peck
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STATISTA: TOWARDS A STATECRAFT OF THE FUTURE

IMMEDIATELY UPON ITS completion in 1970, Berlin’s Haus der Statistik (which stood north of Alexanderplatz in the shadow of the just-built Fernsehturm) took its place as one of the central organs of the GDR state apparatus. With the collection of data and statistics for all of East Germany as its goal, the eleven-story complex housed numerous bureaucratic units, including several floors of Stasi offices. Its street-level businesses were the ultimate in urbane GDR style, hosting two lounges (Jagdklause and the fabulously named Mocca-Eck), a hunting/fishing shop, and Natascha, a boutique offering the latest Soviet imports.

John Peck
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