Image: Arlett Mattescheck

EAST WEST EAST

EAST WEST EAST Postwar Modernism in Berlin

Welcome to the exhibition website.

The Weberwiese and Schillingstraße stations (on line U5) are hosting an exhibition on formative post-war architecture in Berlin.

Even today, the built spaces on Karl-Marx-Allee still show how tensions between the Soviet Union and the three Western Allies escalated during the rebuilding of Berlin. The urban development visions for this area changed several times: from the initial use of the international modern style, to the National Traditions building style and then to eastern modernism’s industrial architecture.

The west responded to the ambitious major residential development project started in 1950 on Karl-Marx-Allee with the Hansaviertel development, presented in 1957 for an international architecture exhibition.

The technical and political confrontations associated with these conceptual variations and events give an insight into the history of the deepening division of the city from 1945 until the Berlin Wall was built in 1961.

The exhibition’s twelve chapters examine the architectures and environments around Karl-Marx-Allee. They compare it with the Hansaviertel district and post-war modernism elsewhere.

The exhibition in the Weberwiese and Schillingstraße stations includes:

The History Walk to 24 selected stations along the avenue, the “anchor buildings”

The History of the construction, urban planning and use of Karl-Marx-Allee in the context of international events

The 12 exhibition themes on urban planning concepts as well as social and cultural developments, presented in short films: the web stories

On the platform level, an exhibition of photographs that explore the architecture, atmosphere and social reality of Karl-Marx-Allee

History Walk exhibition graphic at Schillingstraße station

Image: Arlett Mattescheck

History Walk

Click here for the History Walk

KMA I

First construction phase of Karl-Marx-Allee:
Eastern part of Karl-Marx-Allee, built between 1950 and 1958 > section between Proskauer Straße and Strausberger Platz.
Features: Built in the international modernist style (balcony access buildings, Kosmos Cinema), 1950s National Traditions building style, traditional masonry construction / Landscape architecture of Rosengarten and Weberwiese.

KMA II

Second construction phase of Karl-Marx-Allee:
Western part of Karl-Marx-Allee, built between 1959 and 1964 > section between Strausberger Platz and Alexanderplatz.
Features: Prefabricated housing construction, type Q P transverse wall system, glass pavilions for businesses and hospitality, Cinema International in a 1960s international modernist style.

Location of Karl-Marx-Allee

Karl-Marx-Allee runs through the districts of Mitte and Friedrichshain in Berlin.
In the Mitte district, it stretches from Alexanderplatz to Strausberger Platz, and from Strausberger Platz to Proskauer Straße in Friedrichshain.

Renaming of Karl-Marx-Allee

West of the original site of Frankfurter Tor (now the junction with Straße der Pariser Kommune), Karl-Marx-Allee was called Große Frankfurter Straße and Frankfurter Allee to the east of that.
On 21 December 1949, the two streets were renamed Stalinallee to commemorate the celebrations of Joseph Stalin’s 70th birthday. Since 13 November 1961, the street has been called Karl-Marx-Allee between Alexanderplatz and the present-day Frankfurter Tor. The section to the east of Frankfurter Tor has been called Frankfurter Allee again since 1961.