Shell-Haus, by Emil Fahrenkamp (1932).
Berlin, Germany.
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Even if Fahrenkamp did not reach the stature of Mies or Gropius, and even if he later collaborated with the regime, the Shell-Haus remains my favourite building in Berlin.
First of all I appreciate the overall elegance in the way it just follows the course of the Landwehrkanal. Moreover, I am pretty sure he admired and absorbed Erich Mendelsohn's lessons, as the continuous horizontal bands and the rounded corners (look the Mossehaus in Berlin, the Kaufhaus Schocken in Stuttgart and the Petersdorff Department Store in former Breslau, now Wrocław). Look at those rounded windows, they still look so modern and fresh even after almost 100 years, I cannot imagine how striking they must have looked back then.
The building was finished shortly before the dictatorship took hold. The "failed painter" allegedly despised the Shell-Haus, but this did not prevent Fahrenkamp from receiving official academic positions from the regime. That cost him his reputation after the war, so he retired from public life even if he continued to work as an architect.
© Roberto Conte (2010, 2020)
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