Building as a topographical form. Total theatre Berlin

BUILDING AS A TOPOGRAPHICAL FORM Total theatre Berlin The current state of Berlin’s urban tissue is complex and contradictory. It is a result of a long process of formation and transformation of the urban form, its spatial structure and volumetric composition. The design approach towards this stratified entity has to find a way to establish dialectics between the new and the inherited structure. The specific condition of the city of Berlin, that shows the same, like if it have had its streets and open spaces carved out of what was once a solid mass, a state known as “Berlin of stone”, generates the guidelines for the design intervention. The strategy derives from an idea of a stratified urban block that strives to reach equilibrium between the inherited formation and the new one. It starts as a single volume whose further division and articulation is guided by inherited measures and elements, and later initiates an integrative network of corridors and squares that interrelate all the autonomous elements and the river Spree, on which the site is located. Although created through a mimicry process and a simple extension of the existing structure, the theatre building gains its importance by being the only element that reaches the river edge. Lead by the idea of “Berlin of stone” it appears as a built up mass, a topographical form, fixing a crucial point, the cross section of two important axes, the river Spree and Michael Kirchenstrasse. To conclude, designing a topographical form is just a segment of an idea for a city reconstruction, whose main guideline is to create a city fabric in which there will be clear hierarchy and definition of the urban elements.

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