I’m now going to have to update the “About the author” page on my blog to reflect the fact that I’m technically no longer a student. I completed my Internship at DPZ – Europe (Berlin), completed (and defended) my thesis and have moved on to looking for work. I’ve been so busy lately, since I just finished moving to Paris, that I haven’t been able to post anything on my blog. Well since I have more time on my hands I guess I can start blogging again. I figure I should talk about my thesis topic.
As one can tell from my previous posts, as well as from “What I’m reading”, I’m very into the New Urbanism (NU) movement in planning. It’s why I chose to apply to DPZ as an intern. So I began wanting to write about the NU in some way, shape or form. I wasn’t really sure at first how I was going to tie it into what I was doing in Berlin, but I knew that would be the backbone of my paper. I also knew I wanted to tie it into the “Quartier am Tacheles”, a NU project in Berlin, planned by DPZ – Miami and Duane Phillips (my boss in Berlin). Well, throughout my work at DPZ, Duane would send me out on these excursions, to learn more about the history of urban planning and architecture in Berlin. These were done in chronological order, starting at the beginning of the 20th century.
The main idea of my thesis is to try and explain how a planning theory, based on an American model of urbanism, can have any sense in a city with such a rich and controversial history such as Berlin. My thesis is divided into 3 parts: In the first, I talk about NU itself. I explain the history, the actors and the movement itself. I more or less explain what is, or what isn’t NU. In the second portion, I go through, period by period, each “revolution” of planning and architecture in Berlin. As I do so, I keep referring back to the Charter of New Urbanism, to explain the differences or similarities between the two. Although it was very difficult to speak about a document written in 1996 when talking about communities built before even the First World War, I felt it was an important segway to the next, and final, portion of my thesis. Here I dealt with the actual “Quartier am Tacheles”, giving some history of the site, major players, and proposal by DPZ. To give you a quick idea of the Tacheles, it is a large block in the center of Spandauer-Vorstadt, former East Berlin. The actual building on the site was originally a department store, and before the building could be demolished in the early 90s, it was squatted by a bunch of independent artists. It remains that way today: half in ruins, half art gallery.
What DPZ proposes is in essence a complete gentrification of the site. High end hotels, offices, shopping and residential units would now occupy a large portion of the site. But what is so NU about the development isn’t only the mixture of uses and high density, but rather the fact that the entire plan could go forward without having to kick out the artists from their adoptive home. Although the plan isn’t without controversy, I felt it was a good compromise between both parties. Nothing is built yet but Im interested to see where this thing goes.
