World Architecture Community has released its fifth documentary on the International Building Exhibition Berlin (IBA) within the scope of WAC's exclusive Life & Architecture series which was announced on April 23, 2020.

The International Building Exhibition Berlin played an important role on the transformation of West Berlin, Germany with urban renewal projects between 1979-1987. Initiated in 1979, the IBA followed the two significant strategies to develop West Berlin; "careful urban renewal" and "critical reconstruction."

The IBA completed the transformation in 1987, matching the 750th anniversary of the founding of Berlin. WAC's new documentary includes exclusive interviews with the late German architects Hardt-Waltherr Hamer and Josef Paul Kleihues, who were important contributors on the transformation of West Berlin and careful urban renewals. 

WAC has launched Life & Architecture documentary series to give a detailed and in-depth look at many key buildings of contemporary architecture. The exclusive documentaries, captured from the 1990s, present an outstanding virtual journey throughout the buildings. 

Each documentary or episode features the buildings' distinctive features and the design stories of such important commissions narrated with exclusive interviews with architects, commissioners of the projects and project leaders. 

As the documentaries had been recorded for a Turkish television in 1990s, all the videos are presented in Turkish language but featuring English subtitles. However, the series are not outdated, on the contrary, these documentaries have a very high archive value to recapture the essence of the buildings. 

WAC's new episode shows how the IBA, which has led important urban projects since the 1980s, has commissioned prominent architects to design public housing or housing blocks in the 1920s German tradition of building fairs. The commissioned names included Peter Eisenman, Vittorio Gregotti, Herman Hertzberger, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Rob Krier, Aldo Rossi and James Stirling

A 20-minute video covers Rob Krier’s Ritterstrasse project (1981, Aldo Rossi’s Residential Building Wilhelmstrasse 36-38 (1987), OMA's Checkpoint Charlie Apartments (1980-1990), Oswald Mathias Ungers' Apartments at Lützowplatz (1979- 1983) which was demolished in 2013. 

WAC will be releasing a new documentary each week on Fridays. WAC's new documentary will be posted on Friday, June 5, 2020 on the website and on WAC's Vimeo page.

WAC's fifth documentary: International Building Exhibition Berlin (IBA)

WAC Life & Architecture credits:
Presenter: Özlem Gürses, Editor
Technical Director: Andreas Treske

Stay tuned for a new documentary!

Image © WAC