Berlin: The Latest Architecture and News

Spanish architecture photographer Miguel de Guzmán has released a new video, just in time for Christmas. The video covers three light installations in Berlin designed by Brut Deluxe: the first, a huge light dome, the second consisting of five big three-dimensional light cubes, and the third, an artificial landscape built of 50 light shrubs. All of the installations are designed to create atmospheric spaces that can be entered and experienced. Check out more of his videos here, and some great pictures of the installations after the break...

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Studio Daniel Libeskind has released images of his latest project: a 10,000 square meter residential building planned for the center of Berlin. Occupying a half-acre corner site in the neighborhood of Chausseestrasse, “Chausseestrasse 43” will be encased by a metallic-coated ceramic facade shaped to maximize exposure to natural light.

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With the exhibition "The Poetics of Boxes" Aedes presents the first monographic show in Europe of the work of Mathias Klotz from Santiago de Chile, currently one of Chile’s most successful international architects.

Klotz’s works are characterised by their structural clarity. The distinct volumes and lines of his buildings correspond with perfect conceptual rigour to the landscape. In the exhibition this cosmopolitan from the Pacific presents his approaches and working methods. Alongside his work as an architect for over thirty years, Mathias Klotz is also active as filmmaker and photographer. So in a certain way his buildings can be understood as constructed screenplays. They tell the stories of the inhabitants and the surroundings. Klotz's stylistic devices are framed views, light and shadow, as well as a reduced palette of materials consisting mostly of timber and exposed concrete. Views into and out of the buildings provide a strong connection with the setting. The relationship between inside and outside is a very central theme in Klotz’s oeuvre.

Speaking at the opening, on September 13, will be Pritzker Prize jury member, Dr. h.c. Kristin Feireiss, Cristóbal Molina Baeza, Commissioner National Council for Culture and the Arts, Miquel Adriá, Director Arquine, and Mathias Klotz.

More information and images after the break.

Since its opening in 2001, the ever inspiring Jewish Museum in Berlin has experienced the addition of the Studio Daniel Libeskind designed Glass Courtyard in 2007, and The Academy which was recently completed and opened in 2013. With the museum as the focus and inspiration driving these two recent additions, Spirit of Space took this opportunity to provide us with another look at this emotionally moving masterpiece. From the very beginning, Libeskind believed the extension to the museum was about establishing and securing an identity within Berlin, which was lost during WWII. In cinematic form, their film attempts to express the uneasy sequential essence of Libeskind’s work.

The Jewish Museum is just as emotionally moving and utterly disorienting today as it was when it first opened. Taking a fresh reflective look, Spirit of Space has produced a short film capturing moments of this singular architectural experience. The soundscape is jarring. Shots linger with trepidation. Perceptions waver with marks of appearance and disappearance. And in cinematic form, the film attempts to express the uneasy sequential essence of Daniel Libeskind’s work.

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The proposal for the New Central Library in Berlin by MARS Architekten is a social and cultural centre for Tempelhof’s new quarter. In collaboration with urban designers UBERBAU Architecture & Urbanism and landscape architects TH Treibhaus Berlin & Lavaland, their design was chosen as one of eight winning entrants. Their project focuses upon achieving an immense and complex building that offers a large amount of varying interior spaces in combination with a strong exterior form serving as a public landmark. More images and architects’ description after the break.