Robert Gray: Architecture
The new architecture in Germany, which has arisen everywhere since the country was reunited in 1989, seems to me largely symbolic of a state of mind that was originally manifest in the student revolution of 1968. That first postwar generation to come to maturity brought with it a crisis of questioning and demands for responsibility. The present architectural style might be said to have come out of such an atmosphere, since it is all to do with transparency, openness, permeability, frankness, and an access of light. In contrast to the traditional style, closed and ponderous, although hugely impressive, even the largest of the new buildings are like great icebergs of translucence (although Berlin does not go in for buildings of over-whelming scale). These structures, with their daring bowsprits and tilted cubes of glass, seem aimed at gathering lucidity. Much of the new architecture might have originated as origami shapes, made in blue-ruled graph paper, which was translated into glass and steel. One always hears of Berlin’s ‘dark past’ – these buildings aspire to transcend that. Germany has forced itself to deal with its guilt, it seems to me, in an exemplary way; far better than many another country with genocidal faults. It is a place where life seems to some large extent enlightened. Unexpectedly, it is one of the few places in the world at present which offer hope.
