-
Architects: Modersohn & Freiesleben Architekten Parnerschaft
- Area: 20800 m²
- Year: 2020
-
Photographs:Sebastian Schels
-
Manufacturers: Feldhaus Klinker, Vibia, Bega, Alsecco, BNB, Casalgrande Padana, Kone, Müller Metallbau, RZB, Wehner Tischlerei GmbH
-
Lead Architects: Modersohn & Freisleben Architekten Partnerschaft
Text description provided by the architects. Four apartment buildings in the Maximilians-Quartier of Wilmersdorf “To dwell means to stay,” the philosopher says. Human beings construct dwellings for themselves, to “settle down” and settle into their living space, to stay – a primitive instinct. This is how individual worlds develop – and a sense of one’s home, a term which comes from earlier times.
Today, only the wealthy can shape their living environment as they desire. In times of mass housing construction, people no longer people build their homes; on the contrary, living space is “produced”. An unsentimental, technical process dominated by production conditions, by pressures of time and cost which lead to streamlining and economical construction methods. Individual well-being, irrationality, beauty, and comfort—in short, the inhabitants’ happiness—have no place in this totalitarian system that thinks only in terms of returns.
The results are right before our eyes. At the latest, these deficiencies turned virulent in the large housing estates of the 1960s: a style of architecture that has alienated people, and where nobody wants to stay. Which looks the same all over the world. Of course, some say that it is perfectly suited to the mobile, globalized society of our age. But the mutation of the human being into a digitalized, mobile, globalized being will probably still take some time. For the moment, the human being feels rather uprooted. For the moment, the right to a place one calls home—which anonymous housing construction is doing everything to trample underfoot—remains an inviolable human right.
But what do these considerations have to do with the Maximilians-Quartier residential complex? Since the advent of postmodernism, architects have always been the ones trying to mitigate the shortcomings of mechanized, speechless modernism using narratives and variation. It is a tough battle with the normative forces that seem to have a firm grip on housing construction.
The Maximilians-Quartier, of course, is also subject to these almost exclusively economic constraints. The highest possible density is required economization in planning and construction methods, and serial apartments with standard floor plans that are easy to market and manage. And the seemingly inevitable result? Today, quarters with stereotypical apartment blocks have become the standard.
The four buildings designed by Modersohn & Freiesleben, however, are characterized by the attempt to escape the schematism dictated by the master plan and to gain functional and added aesthetic value for the residents.
This begins with the development of the floor plan, with the access system of the stories. The central corridors of apartment blocks C3 and D2 are not long tubes with a seemingly endless line of doors but have been divided into two smaller sections by the intermediate elevator. In blocks C4 and D1, which are up to 26 meters deep, the length of the corridors has been reduced by offsets. Moreover, the light trapezoidal shape of north-south-facing blocks C4 and D1 improves their alignment with the sun. In the east-west-facing blocks, there are only two north-facing apartments per floor, which nevertheless benefit from the sun's rays through a corner room with a balcony that faces east or west.
Contrasting the neighboring blocks of strictly cubic flats in the modernist tradition the architects designed more differentiated structures. Gable quotations transform the building into a “house”, the contour of the roof line is slightly off-kilter, and here and there a corner has been made into a roof pergola by the apartment owner’s wishes. The eye is also offered added value in the details, the users benefit e.g. in the vestibules thanks to their beautiful materials, wall designs, and offers such as benches. The front doors do not come from a catalog but have been individually designed, and door and window jambs are accentuated by ceramic bricks.
Thus, despite the tight budget, everywhere you can feel that there was a real attempt to pay attention to the users and that one is living in an environment that offers more than just accommodation in a standardized living space.
