Films from the 90s

The members of a graduating class at the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union in New York City explain their imaginative solutions to their fifth-year thesis assignment. In lucid and informed reasoning, they individually describe their sources and processes and also their progress in architectural language that impressively conveys the empowering nature of inspired professional education. With the participation of John Hejduk.

With the participation of George Kennan and Günter Behnisch, Peter Bohlin, Frank Gehry, Meinhard von Gerkan, Gerhard Kallmann, Josef Paul Kleihues, Christian de Portzamparc, Kevin Roche, John Ruble and Buzz Yudell, Robert Stern, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Michael Wilford, and others.

Since the fall of the wall Berlin has been trying to come back as the metropolis it once was. An important part of this was the re-building of the center of the city, where the wall once stood. Within a few years this center was rebuilt, accompanied by an extensive public debate about the quality of the new architecture and the merits of the city planning for the area. To retrieve the ambiance of the metropolitan Berlin of the past would not be possible, but there is evidence that a new Berlin has emerged, with many worthwhile qualities that are unique to the city.

Pariser Platz at the Brandenburg gate is one of the historic squares that has re-emerged. An imposing assembly of internationally acclaimed architects found new solutions for the ten buildings that once defined the site, among them the American embassy. The re-emerging square symbolizes the reunification of the city; the years of the wall formally ended in Pariser Platz in 1989 with the opening of the Brandenburg Gate.