Hausaufgaben

Berlin after 1989. The city, with its East-West dual identity, becomes a magnet for people who understand how to use the unfinished as a basis for their own projects. In the in-between spaces of backyards and vacant lots, there is less contemplation about the emerging capital and more focus on alternative forms of modern urbanity. What defines a metropolis and what role architecture plays in this context also occupies Frank Arnold and Mathias Gladisch. The two architects founded a joint office in 1996. With a keen sense for changing construction tasks, they are at the forefront as Berlin discovers the potential of its gaps, later rehabilitates the long-maligned large housing estates, and eventually finds a kind of European capital normality. This development is reflected in almost exemplary fashion in the projects of Arnold and Gladisch Architekten. They demonstrate how a city grows from the architecture it needs, enables, and inspires—and vice versa. From small individual projects in the early phase to residential buildings for construction groups, and large-scale projects for public and institutional clients, housing associations, and investors—the assignments that Arnold and Gladisch Architekten have faced over the past 25 years have been tackled with a firm conviction: every design must primarily relate to its specific location and find an individual, context-appropriate form for its intended use.