Scharoun, Hans (1893-1972), Arquiteto alemão:Edifício da Siemens Stadt (1929) em Berlim;
Edifício da Philarmônica de Berlim (1964), na Alemanha.
One critic castigated the Kulturforum, an ensemble of galleries, museums and concert halls in the western part of Berlin, as an arcadia in the heart of Berlin, and in doing so he spoke the truth. In fact it was there that Hans Scharoun made his call (first expressed in the early nineteen-twenties) for contemporary sites for the community and city landmarks to be created, to guide the consciousness of the citizens. Pride of place was to be given to a building dedicated to the arts, and in truth the resulting Philharmonie was to become his masterpiece.
Hans Scharoun was born in Bremen on 20 September 1893, grew up in nearby Bremerhaven and studied architecture at the Technische Hochschule Berlin between 1912 and 1914. Following World War I, he worked as a freelance architect in Insterburg, East Prussia (now Chernachovsk, Russian Federation) until 1925, before taking up teaching at Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) and finally returning to Berlin as a freelance architect in 1932. In Berlin he was also to hold the Chair of Urban Development at the Technische Universität from 1946 to 1958. During this period he organised colloquia on urban development at the Technische Universität, which found a great resonance, and he considered it important that his institute be both a teaching and research institution, allowing students to take part in practical as well as research tasks.
In the midst of the dawning Neues Bauen (New Building) movement during the nineteen-twenties, Scharoun had begun to discover his own style, and under the influence of Hugo Häring found his way to the school of organic building. Like Häring, he stressed that a "supportive idea" had to be present in order to determine a building's design. According to Scharoun, this idea did not just consist of a mere fulfilment of a purpose - on the contrary, it comprised an externally rigid, mechanical principle. There had to be, so to speak, a living building, developing within itself and with an internal legitimacy.
The Kulturforum is a well-known example of this architecture. When music is heard unexpectedly, people join up to form a circle. Even though this is a particularly unpretentious observation, it was the principle that inspired Scharoun to design a Philharmonie that could not have been simpler or more ingenious. He transposed this process into a concert hall and let the music form its heart - both spatially and optically. The audience is arranged concentrically around the podium where the musicians stand, and revitalized sounds emanate upwards as if from a fountain of youth, thanks to acoustic features never encountered before.
Opposite the Philharmonie is the new Staatsbibliothek (state library) building, only completed after Scharoun's death. While the Berlin Wall still stood, a larger second building was needed. But, always the visionary, Hans Scharoun designed a library for a future Berlin without a Wall. However, during his lifetime, an authority gained overall supervision and halved the amount of space available to readers planned originally. Despite further major intrusions, the idea of a reader-oriented library at least still survived: there were no hampering courthouse-style staircases full of intimidating steps and no dismal heavy doors demarcating tightly enclosed areas. Instead, readers glide through the vast reading room, and another broad hall (itself expanding into harmony) lets visitors softly glide into the bright peace and quiet. The spirit is free, like the wings of heaven.
