"Piss and shit everywhere. If you look close enough, at first sight it looks fine, with its lawns...and shopping centers. But the staircases of the flats stink! What are the children to do, when they are playing outside? They shit themselves waiting for the lift, so instead they do it in the lobby." — Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981)
A series of concrete apartment blocks towering over their surroundings. People have lived for years in these austere, dreary conditions. The architect Walter Gropius originally envisioned buildings five or six storeys tall, housing luxury condominiums for the middle to upper classes. All that changed with the construction of the Berlin Wall. To accommodate for the drastically reduced space, the buildings shot up over thirty storeys tall. The south portion of Gropiusstadt is bound by the Wall—that part was originally meant to be a playground. When people look out their windows, they see barbed wire and concrete, guard towers and border guards patrolling with their dogs. Hardly an uplifting sight.
The residents in Gropiusstadt are usually the irregularly employed or workers living from paycheck to paycheck. The apartments are serviced by outdated, lumbering lifts; the hallways are dark and not always pleasant to the olfactory senses. The residents are too absorbed in their own problems to care about their surroundings. They turn to drugs for distraction, or engage in petty crime or vandalism. The one good thing about living in Gropiusstadt is that it is very easy to get to. It has four U-bahn stations, providing ample public transport for such a small area.
Sites[]
Gropiusstadt Complex[]
- Stealth 3
A series of concrete apartment blocks towering over their surroundings. People have lived for years in these austere, dreary conditions. Each building is over thirty storeys tall and serviced by outdated, lumbering lifts. The outside of the building is bare concrete, while the interior hallways are lined with a greyish-green tile. Age has filled the tiles with grout and the hallways stink of piss and shit. The lights never seem to work and it is very easy to get around the apartment building unseen.
The housing units don't offer anything more than the bare necessities. A small kitchen, a bathroom, and one or two bedrooms is standard. Space is minimal and people live in cramped conditions.
U-bahnhof Johannisthaler Chaussee[]
The entrances to this U-bahn station are located on both sides of the road, Johannisthaler Chaussee. The station has one central platform and walls that are done in an off-white tile. Old posters and graffiti cover the walls.