Modern Berlin: in his column 'Letter from Berlin' in November 1928, Oscar Bie reviewed the city's new architecture—both retrogressive and progressive

Apollo, June, 2006 by Oscar Bie

Architecture holds a leading position at the beginning of the winter season. She alone has definitely found the modern style. Berlin will soon possess a series of buildings that typify the age. Of course, the instances of retrogression must not be forgotten. It is still possible for colossal premises like the recently opened 'Haus Vaterland' to be erected, and a vast fortune to be spent on the repetition of an antiquated masquerade of styles. The staircase with an aluminium roof is perhaps tolerable, but the series of national dining rooms--Hungarian, Oriental, Wild Western, Spanish, Grinzing with a view over the Danube, Bavarian with a view on to the Eibsee, a Rhine terrace with a view of the river; with hills, an illuminated ship, running railways, in some cases rain, thunder, and lightning ... and, finally, the great modern dance hall itself, glittering in faceted palm mirrors--all this is a concession, a popular affair, without a trace of an education in modern art. It is a pity.

In the evening, sitting in the new cinema that Erich Mendelssohn has built on the Lehninerplatz, one feels the difference. Horseshoe shaped even outside, dark violet in colour like the brickwork of Amsterdam, divided into shops and offices, it has three cubic towers rising up and serving for ventilation, for the display of luminous signs, for the iron curtain, and for the side stages. The wonderful auditorium holding 1,300 spectators is decorated in light colours, with entirely concealed lighting breathing movement and rhythm; the corridors are elegant in line, the roof is spanned by longitudinal beams, the panelling is in mahoganb the organ pipes of this finest and largest of cinema organs are covered with horizontal ribs. This is modern art which does not imitate superseded styles, but develops space and its function. Next door, Mendelssohn is building the Comedian's Cabaret, similarly constructed, but round, more colourful, with revolving chairs, as it is to be half a restaurant and half a stage, and the visitor is greeted by Trier's caricatures.

Everybody is working to make the modern style popular. The Co-Operative Company for Employees' Homes, called Gagfah, has opened an exhibition of a settlement in the Fischtalgrund of Zehlendorf, where we may see the comfortable homes of today in the most varied examples. Tessenow is the principal architect, Poelzig also takes part ... and Gropius is building near by; there are some splendid models, without colour, and all with steep roofs. It is remarkable that these buildings have been erected close to another settlement, already existing, and also the work of the best modern architects, but full of colour and with flat roofs. A violent dispute arose between the partisans of the steep roof and those of the flat roof. Can a solution be found? The flat roof corresponds to the modern sense of space; the steep roof is better suited to the landscape and is more practical. The question will have to be determined afresh for each case. But obviously something is up, and too much is made of it.