Lecture no 13 // What can skyscrapers do for the city

BERLIN 3000 – What can skyscrapers do for the city?

Tuesday, 23 April 2024 at 7 p.m.

Markus Penell and Sabrina Zwach in conversation with Ephraim Gothe and Christian von Oppen.

Skyscrapers were a place of longing for the modern era, the stairway to heaven and a metaphor for the advancement of both space and civilisation. If you lived in one you had made it, you had escaped the clutches of the past and saved yourself for the future. This image has given way to a more critical view, with a stronger desire for ecological, social, and procedural qualities. But do they still have some kind of utopian glory? And what do we want, whether realistically or unrealistically, from skyscrapers in the city?

An open conversation at the O&O Depot about a controversial building type, with
EPHRAIM GOTHE District Councillor for Urban Development Berlin Mitte
CHRISTIAN VON OPPEN Senate Department for Urban Development, Construction & Housing – Head of the Architecture I Urban Design Department & Planning
SABRINA ZWACH Author and dramaturge
MARKUS PENELL O&O Baukunst

Fig.: Chalk drawing M.O. / Urbane Mitte