LIVING AND WORKING AT THE
BRANDENBURG GATE
Pariser Platz 4A — A thousand white lilies / Urban glade
Location: Berlin-Mitte
Client: ABG Baubetreuungsgesellschaft
Year: 2001
Area: 150 m²
Construction costs: 35.000 €
Direct costs: 230 €/m²
Architecture: Ortner & Ortner Baukunst
“I thought we’d never get rid of the flat (square metre of office space: 40 euros a month, flat for a good 20 euros) but we could have rented it out three times. …The fact that the most expensive flat was let the fastest follows the logic of (cultural) added values.”
Representative of the developer in the Tagesspiegel, 24.05.2002
The inner courtyard of Pariser Platz is surrounded and even underbuilt by exclusive uses – the Kennedy Museum, the European House, the Margaux gourmet restaurant and, above all, many, many offices and flats of the top segment. Clad in Thuringian travertine, set with bronze cladding, the façades on both sides are kept in strict order by the architects Ortner & Ortner and Kollhoff and Timmermann.
In contrast to the clear order of the façades, inside, an urban clearing has been created in vertical and horizontal, free organic movement.
As if in a forest, the ORGANIC HILLS are overgrown with SIGHTS swaying in the light breezes. In colorful harmony with the bronze fittings and the slightly reddish travertine, picturesque Japanese FAN-HORNS rise from them. Their genus “Osakazuki” is known for its particularly reliable and intense autumn coloring. In spring, CREME-coloured NARCISES of the “Poeticus” variety sprout on the green hills.
All this, however, is only the prelude to the event that the residents, visitors and also the staff of this house eagerly await every year, since the spectacle first commenced in 2002.
From the beginning of April, green necks slowly emerge from the hills, growing stronger and stronger, and form long stems topped with individual buds.
Then, in mid-May, the time comes: the three-week spectacle of the opening lily flowers begins bud by bud, until gradually THE WHOLE YARD BECOMES A SEA OF WALLING WHITE LILIES, with well over 1000 individual flowers.
