photo sources: left, right

just came across the left-hand photo on flickr by chance and was immediately confused and intrigued.
to be found in berlin, it’s actually a faithful recreation of one corner of karl schinkel’s bauakademie (building academy), the building which used to stand in the same spot before being damaged during the war and subsequently demolished in 1962 to make way for the ministry of foreign affairs. needless to say, that building has also since been demolished.

due to the importance of the original bauakademie (both culturally and architecturally) there are now, apparently, plans underway to rebuild the entire structure as close to the original as possible. what i’m not sure of is why the single corner that was built (before being surrounded by the shell covered scaffolding you see below) a few years back. according to some dodgy translations via google i get the impression that it was built as a restoration exercise, both to teach students about restoration itself and to show the public how faithful the rebuild could be.

either way, it’s a great monument that makes for a strange photo.


photo source

:: bauakademie on wikipedia
:: association for the promotion of karl friedrich schinkel’s academy of architecture