Fifteen Shades of Grey - commieblocks in BERLIN Marzahn
 

A short series of 15 pictures from Marzahn. A part of East Berlin from 1949, Marzahn remained a rural site until from 1977 vast housing estates were built on its fields by order of the East German authorities. The construction, carried out in the typical plattenbau style, dragged on until the late 1980s.

Thanks for watching :)

With a little thought, they could have built some of those in urban format and some in towers-in-the-parking-lot style, but I guess choice wasn't a thing.

It strikes me how narrow these buildings are. Commieblocks are often one room deep, which can have benefits in that every room has a window and it's possible to have multiple bedrooms. But much less density than they appear to have.

An interesing part of Germany you don't often see photos of. Are those stairs the fire escape, or is that a regular entrance/exit?

I don't know.

When heard NYC I thought of everything;
When heard London I thought of richness;
When heard Paris I thought of fashion;
When heard Berlin I thought of dull.

In many ways, Berlin is the capital of the 20th century.

(As such, I avoid it when I can.)

When we went from the 20th to the 21st century a couple of decades ago, my friends and I put together our own little group challenge as to what were "the city", "the person" and "the country" of the 20th century.

We exchanged emails back and forth for several weeks, sort of like how they sometimes invite guests on the radio to bring a favourite book and then ask them to discuss and defend their choices.

Anyway, my choice for "city" of the 20th century was Berlin.

I like this thread. I like commie blocks.

Do you ever have anything nice to say?

Thank you for your comments. Most comments were really interesting to read :)

Of couse not all of the city looks like this but it is also a (less known) part of Berlin.
Specially in winter these buildings look ugly but it is relativly cheap to rent an apartement there and most buildings are in good shape.

@ mikecolley: Neither a fire escape nor a regular entrance. It's a special construction to get on the rooftop.

I wonder what people who live in commie blocks actually think about them.

I like it. Would be an interesting place to live.

truely a mecca for hipsters.