Berlin serves as laboratory for U.Va. Today it is a city in transition, in the process of reshaping itself. Renowned international architects have been drawn there to help recreate the city and its skyline. Architecture students, in turn, are looking to this city of new ideas to shape their thinking on design.
Berlin is the greatest museum of new architecture in the world today.
We were able to see that our dreams, the kinds of designs that we create at school, can actually be executed. As an extension of the School of Architecture's foreign programs, the students visited Berlin in February to research old buildings, renovations, new construction and design, as well as to consider the influence of the German culture, history and politics on the built environment. They also are using the city as a site for their semester-long design studio projects. Prior to the trip, Van Lengen and professors Edward Ford, Charles Menefee and John V. Maciuika led the students in an intensive introduction to the history, politics and culture of Berlin and to the grand plan to create a new capital for Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification. Menefee, an associate professor of architecture, believes that East Berlin provides the students a view of how to build a capital, how to build a city and how to build a building.