Mapped out: explore the streets of Berlin through Bauhaus and brutalism
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- (opens in new tab)
- Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

Tourists and locals alike will delight in a new map which tracks Berlin’s modernist architecture across the city. Published by Blue Crow Media in collaboration with journalist and film-maker Matthew Tempest and photographer Simon Phipps, the map shines a light on 50 modernist masterpieces of the 20th century, exhuming Berlin’s political history along the way.
The neat, double-sided guide includes an introduction to the period alongside details of the architectural edifices which defined it. Formerly a political correspondent for The Guardian, Tempest credits the architecture of a city to understanding its history. ‘No 20th century city has more ghosts than Berlin – and they live on in its buildings,’ he says.
London-based publisher Blue Crow Media illustrates Berlin's 20th century architectural styles across this neat folded map
From Bruno Taut’s Horseshoe Estate – influenced by Soviet ideals – to Cold War period works such as Café Moscow and Kino International in East Berlin, and onto Hans Scharoun’s Berlin Philharmonic and Le Corbusier’s Unité d'Habitation in West Berlin, the city’s architecture was stretched in every stylistic direction as political extremes tore the city in two.
Looking to the end of the century, post-modernist buildings such as Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum and Peter Eisenman’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe help us understand the role of memorial and repentance that architecture plays in Berlin – preventing us from forgetting irreversible mistakes, asking for forgiveness and commemorating lives lost, while issuing a monumental warning to future generations. ‘Its rebirth as the continent’s capital of cool comes with a blood-soaked and fractured past,’ says Tempest.
Berlin's iconic Television Tower, constructed between 1965 and 1969 by the administration of the German Democratic Republic (GDR)
Illustrated with striking photographs by Phipps, the Modern Berlin Map waits to be unfolded across a café table in Kreuzberg, to reveal new layers of historical understanding and further fuel our fascination with architectural artifice. The map can be purchased at independent bookshops across Europe including Pro qm in Berlin and Foyles in London.
Opened in 1957, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt was designed by architect Hugh Stubbins
Opened in 1979 and designed by Ralf Schüler and Ursulina Schüler-Witte, the Internationales Congress Centrum is one of the world’s largest conference centres
the Neue Nationalgalerie opened in 1968 and shows early 20th century art
Completed in 1980, this building was formerly Berlin’s Central Animal Laboratory, where thousands of animals were tested on
Built between 1972 and 1976, the Bierpinsel or ‘Beer Brush’ is a tower that has changed hands and uses over the past decades
This apartment block by Le Corbusier is designed in his ‘Unité d'Habitation’ style, which he conceptualised via four other models built in France
INFORMATION
Modern Berlin Map, £8. For more information, visit the Blue Crow Media website (opens in new tab)
Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.
-
S94 Design makes the most of its uptown location to blur the lines of art and design
S94 Design brings displays from Kwangho Lee, Donald Judd, Max Lamb and more to its Rafael Viñoly-designed location
By Julie Baumgardner • Published
-
Oasi Cashmere is taking Zegna back to its roots in the Italian Alps
Oasi Cashmere – an environmentally-conscious, all-embracing cashmere collection – is inspired by the Oasi Zegna nature park in the lush Biella Alps
By Jack Moss • Published
-
Lynda Benglis’ seductive hall of mirrors and juicy neon eggs in London
American artist Lynda Benglis subverts expectations with new bronze sculptures and otherworldly coloured eggs in a new solo show at Thomas Dane Gallery, London
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
The finest brutalist architecture in London and beyond
For some of the world's finest brutalist architecture in London and beyond, scroll below. Can’t get enough of brutalism? Neither can we.
By Jonathan Bell • Published
-
Modernist architecture: inspiration from across the globe
Modernist architecture has had a tremendous influence on today’s built environment, making these midcentury marvels some of the most closely studied 20th-century buildings; check back soon for new additions to our list
By Ellie Stathaki • Published
-
Hampstead House revives neglected Trevor Dannatt modernist home
Hampstead House by Coppin Dockray is the sensitive restoration of an overlooked Trevor Dannatt modernist home
By Shiori Kanazawa • Published
-
Last days of Berlin’s Tegel Airport celebrated in new photo book
Photographer Andreas Gehrke celebrates Tegel Airport and creates an intimate portrait of the place where the passengers have departed forever
By Jonathan Bell • Published
-
Anupama Kundoo on Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi’s legacy
Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi's recent passing shook the global architecture community; here, leading Indian architect Anupama Kundoo looks back at his legacy
By Anupama Kundoo • Published
-
‘Brutalist Paris’ is a book that lays bare the legacy of the city’s concrete architecture
Architectural cartographer Blue Crow Media launches ‘Brutalist Paris’, its first book, a photographic study of the French capital’s surviving brutalist treasures and concrete impasses
By Jonathan Bell • Published
-
Mapping modern Cambridge architecture
A modern Cambridge architecture map offers immersive tours through the British city’s 20th century gems
By Martha Elliott • Published
-
In memoriam: Balkrishna V Doshi (1927 – 2023)
Balkrishna V Doshi, one of India’s preeminent architects and the world’s greatest modernists, has died at the age of 95. To honour his memory, we revisit a story from the Wallpaper* archives
By Ellie Stathaki • Published