Famous buildings
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International architectural stars
The architectural scene in Germany has several regional centers, but since reunification it has also certainly focused on Berlin. In the capital, world-class architecture can be experienced at close quarters: Whether Lord Norman Foster, who converted the former Reichstag building into the new German parliament, Renzo Piano, Daniel Libeskind, I. M. Pei or Rem Koolhaas – the list of international architects who have made their mark on the new face of Berlin is long.
German master builders
However, the elite among German master builders such as Helmut Jahn, von Gerkan Marg und Partner, Hans Kollhoff and Josef Paul Kleihues have likewise made a firm contribution to the new capital. In the old harbours of Hamburg and Düsseldorf experiments are being conducted with new formal ideas. And in many cities striking museum buildings have been created by German architects – such as Stephan Braunfels’ Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Frank O. Gehry’s Museum MARTa in Herford, Tadao Ando’s Langen Foundation near Neuss and the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts by Berlin architects Hufnagel Pütz Rafaelian.
source: Facts about Germany
German Architecture Award – The Best Buildings of 2008
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From churches to business premises to residential houses: the German Architecture Museum (DAM) in Frankfurt featured twenty four outstanding examples of contemporary German architecture for the prize.
Perhaps the most eye-catching is the BMW Group building in Munich with its unusual rotating form. But remarkable architecture is also being created outside German cities and major population centres. In the town of Schulzendorf near Berlin, the architecture firm Zanderroth Architekten have turned a primary school into a colourful modern building.
Two of the selected buildings by German architects are located outside Germany. Architects from the firm LIN Finn Geipel Giulia Andi Architects Urbanists have converted a submarine bunker in the French city of Saint-Nazaire. And the firm FAR Frohn & Rojas has constructed a Wall House in Santiago de Chile, which does away with the traditional concept of walls, using instead a series of wall-layers of differing transparency.
In addition to the exhibition, an overall winner was chosen. The 2008 DAM Award for Architecture in Germany went to the architect Peter Zumthor for his building Kolumba, the Art Museum of the Archbishopric of Cologne, which combines late Gothic elements of a chapel with a modern-style construction.
Ever since 1980, the German Architecture Museum has been awarding prizes for the best buildings of the year in its DAM Yearbook.
