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| Renovated Plattenbauten: extra metal-frame balconies in light-blue, existing ones with new blue glass-bricks. |
If you can stand a bit of
Ostalgie and have a Sunday off, the
Plattenbaumuseum in Berlin
Hellersdorf is worth the visit: in Hellersdorf, part of GDR, between 1976 and 1986 were built roughly 42.000 prefabricated concrete-slab apartments (
Plattenbau), the majority of which consisting of WBS-70 typology. This type was characterized by a modular raster or 6 x 6 mt., a depth of 12 mt., floor height of 2.80 mt. usually rising till the 5th, 6th or 11th floor. A building with 30 apartments could be built in 4 weeks, 18 hours per apartment. In a WBS-70 could live a couple with one or two children, or a couple with no children who needed an extra working-room.
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| General WBS-70 plan. |
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| Kitchen: note the all-present wallpaper. |
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| Bedroom. |
The company in charge of the renovation wanted to show how the original situation was, compared to the "new" apartments: in fact you can also visit the very next renovated apartment and see the difference. Getting rid of a partition wall and of wallpaper, reducing the rooms from three to two, adding an extra balcony, external insulation and increased care of the green spaces are quite easy moves. What unfortunately is harder to change is the absence of mixes functions in the neighborhood, and the relative distance from the city center (at least the
perceived one) and from the Ring that runs across Berlin. One has anyhow to say that an underground station lies quite close to the blocks.
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| Two apartments at ground floor share the garden. |
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| Ongoing renovation: note the external insulation being "attached" and the effort with colors. |
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| New entrance with shed. Again the color-attempt. |
An example of Plattenbau-description that escapes (n)ostalgia is "
Platte mit Aussicht", a film-documentary on the Dresden-Gorbitz quartier.
More and high-quality pics here.
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