Since I’ve begun photographing the city in 1985, much of Berlin continues to lie exposed, whether ruined and abandoned, or under construction and in transition. I stepped into a hinterhof (rear courtyard) of a building between Mauerstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse in the heart of the old government quarter. A number of art galleries had taken over spaces hidden from view from the street, and a hodge podge of different structures, some old, some new, were revealed. I found it a particularly vivid example of the layering of the city.

Courtyard between Mauerstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse (4×5 film)

When I first visited what was East Berlin in ’85 I was shocked by the condition of the buildings, most still showing the scars of World War II, and even the new ones already beginning to look shabby. There were a number of showcases, however, that had received some attention like the Pergamon Museum and Schinkel’s Schauspielhaus, the concert hall. The Neues Museum on the Museum Island, on the other hand, was a ruin. It is finally being renovated based on plans by David Chipperfield.

From the architects’ website: The power of the ruin not least stems from this exposed brickwork shell, investing the building 150 years after it was first imagined, with the indelible presence of a picturesque classical ruin.

Today the building is under construction, covered with scaffolding and towered over by cranes, that ubiquitous element of the Berlin skyline. A shrapnel pocked building was on the right, a piece of a classical collonade stood beyond wire fencing, and a tourist couple stopped to gaze.


Neues Museum under reconstruction (4×5 film)