Brutalist Makeover: Industrial wasteland is now Berlin's San Gimignano | Highlights of Architecture

This forty-three-meter-tall, former concrete silo in Berlin-Lichtenberg is home to a Berlin-based architecture firm. Its brutalist style may not appeal to everyone, but it’s a real passion project for Olaf Grawert and Arno Brandlhuber. All about the makeover of an abandoned brutalist masterpiece.
#brutalism #berlinarchitecture
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CREDITS
Report: Christine Lebert
Camera: Florian Kroker
Edit: Ulrike Hoffmann
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[@thisismissem]

It feels a bit odd that they've not done seemingly any landscaping around their towers, I think they just want the air of dereliction whilst paying €800,000 for it, which to be honest, is totally on brand for Berliners (I say, as a Berliner)

[@thomasmadsenhanks8335]

Hallo Emelia wie geht es dir 😊

[@YEdwardP]

I think concrete is a great material for buildings but the brutalism aesthetic always rubbed me the wrong way. Literally. As a child, the walls were so abrasive, running your fingers along them was like scrapping sand paper. Over my life, I have been in several brutalist and I never learned to like it. The brutalist movement came about in the hope of a more egalitarian world. Of putting function over form, with an honest and humble approach to architecture. But there is a fine line between "humble" and "cheap," and in my mind, brutalist architecture has fallen hard in the "cheap" camp. It screams of "built by the lowest bidder," like a city that decided that a building that did not need to be painted or maintained sounded really good. It calls to mind electric fixtures not hidden behind walls, but instead install through those ugly metal tubes that run the length of walls and ceilings. It feels like a constant reminder of your lower status and that you as the poor do not deserve beauty. I've been on university campuses with a mix of neo-classical, modern, and brutalist buildings and inevitably, the brutalist ones are the ones I least enjoyed seeing or occupying. Can brutalist buildings be beautiful? Almost certainly. But this drab thing with rain marks dripping down from the metal balconies certainly isn't helping me see that. At least put a coat of paint on it.

[@JJONNYREPP]

Brutalist Makeover: Industrial wasteland is now Berlin's San Gimignano | Highlights of Architecture 1402PM 4.3.23 they'll be saving all those fire fighting personnel training towers next... rendering them to no end. we all like a good mirror.

[@texleeger8973]

I don't mind the brutalism. But to equate to Tuscany, well, he must be smokin' the devil's weed.

[@tobiwan001]

It's noble to save old buildings and they look great on the inside, but there is a reason all non-architects hate brutalism. It's de-humanizing.

[@karpuzye]

helal lan