Talking walls

50 years Interbau Berlin
a project by Ivonne Dippmann and Marion Wagner

Talking walls describes a project which deals with the history and the development of the Hansaviertel Berlin.

*content/concept

In 1957 the Interbau took place in Berlin with the focus to rebuilt and rethink the Hansaviertel as a place to combine living and working.
The international building exhibition (IBA) was concerned to create new ideas and projects within the social, cultural and ecological range, in order to set a new impulse in town construction and agriculture in general.

*minimal medial extension

Next to the entrance doors of several buildings in the Hansaviertel are audio sockets integrated into the brickwalls. Those offer the possibility to "listen" to their history and process of development. A quiet beautiful aspect is that nowadays the majority of pedestrians carry headphones with themselves which makes it really simply "to hook oneself" up/in. As soon as you get connected the building begins to tell its story.

What you get are thoughts and interviews of former architects, city planners and the government authorities, who were 1957 in charge. The majority of the selected pieces were chosen out of the official catalog of the international building exhibition Berlin 1957. Apart from the description of the different buildings, the catalog covers detailed descriptions and visions several of the over 40 participating architects had as well describing the theoretical discourse.
Beginning with the greeting words of the former Federal President for example the catalog contains precise formulated concepts how living, working and social live should be combined in the "city of tomorrow".

By listening to the interviews in combination with the perception of the present architectural landscape the listener gets shifted into a time 50 years ago which had the requirement to plan "the city of tomorrow".

This way of reflecting/ reminding/ reexperiencing makes you understand how space and architecture are leaving traces of time behind. By knowing about the process of history the individual might develop a necessity to understand and to actually see.

Because of the auditive focus a new perception results for the individual. The pedestrian experiences the place and/or its history in a new way.

*documentation

To illustrate the project a bit better there exists a documentary film, which brings the function and the effect of the installation a little closer. As auditive examples 3 different texts were spoken - the speech of Konrad Adenauer, "the most important planning principles for the city of tomorrow" and "city and soil" out of the official exhibition catalog. The spoken texts combined with a "visual journey" through the Hansaviertel shows which effect this architecture has to us today - 50 years later.