“Berlin, a Housing Block by Bruno Taut Will Be Demolished”. Álvaro Siza in the “Taut City” (1975-1988)

Ruins are ultimately the end point of any architecture, but also often, whether literally or metaphysically, their origin. The ruin, as a reference conserved in a process of transformation, has been a key for understanding the work of the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza (1933-).

The present article examines an encounter between Siza and the work of Bruno Taut (1880-1938) in three sections. First, it proposes that Siza prepared it by studying books by and about Taut; second, it conjectures a specific encounter between Siza and the ruins of a building by Taut; third, it suggests how the latter could have influenced Siza. Siza’s projects in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district between 1975-1988 presented his first opportunity to work abroad.

Berlin – which Siza called, in tribute, the “Taut city” – was then a city under extraordinary circumstances: divided, ruinated, and under renovation. The article claims that although Siza’s interest in ruins and in Taut precedes his Berlin work, the sight of Taut (that is, of modern architecture) in ruins made the encounter memorable and stimulating. A crucial source is a 1977 article by Tilmann Buddensieg, which depicts the ruins of Taut’s apartment building in Kottbusser Damm 2-3 (1910-1911), also in Kreuzberg, damaged during WW2 and set for demolition at that time. At the last moment, Taut’s ruins were incorporated into a renovation by architects Inken and Hinrich Baller (1982). However, only the ruins, essential and transient, and not the renovated building, could have captured Siza’s attention.