A Walk With An Architect In A German Town

This winter, I took a short trip to Germany and spent some time discovering Karlsruhe, a town new to me. Arriving in a new place and getting to see the unfamiliar urban fabric (buildings, streets and plazas) is one of my absolute favorite things to do. I treat it like a little adventure. At the start of my journey, I scan the map briefly and then go without it, using the streets and the buildings as my guides.

My journey at Karlsruhe began on the south-west edge of the town, where I got off the light rail and started walking towards the center. The progression of walking from the edge towards the center often takes you through the history of the city. The edges are typically built of more contemporary buildings and as you get closer to the center and into its heart, you see the historic buildings. In the case of Karlsruhe, as in the many European cities that have been bombed during WWII, there are many missing blocks that have been filled in by younger city members, creating a nice variety in styles and times.

I kept walking until I reached a denser area with tighter blocks. Here, I stepped into an older part of the town - with narrower facades and charming streets at slight angles. The streets running perpendicular to me lured me to the right and I ended up going on a circular detour to the right of the center. You may think: ”How can the streets lure you in a direction?” It is very simple. I look at the architecture, the street geometries, and choose the direction that is more visually interesting. Here in Karlsruhe, the narrower, and more playful, streets with small towers on the buildings captured my attention and lead me forward.

When I lay out cities in my urban design practice, I shamelessly borrow from all of the experience I’ve had walking though the new to me cities. For example, all of my projects have hierarchy of street and building sizes, they all have angles, curves and kinks in the streets to create interesting perspectives and provide more visibility to the facades, little coffee shops and stores. My ultimate favorite move is to narrow the street, put an archway over it, place a tower element in the front and open the space up with a plaza after the archway. This is something I borrowed from my experience of taking many walks in Brussels while on break from writing a master thesis on design firm business models.

Street on the south side of Karlsruhe next to a pleasant park with cultural pavilion buildings. You can see the postmodern building on the left, which was most likely a post-war infill project.

Back at Karlsruhe, after I walked out of the cozy area of smaller streets, I found myself in a circular street with a park next to it. The curve lead me towards a new urban development of offices, schools and apartments on the west side of town. I enjoyed the spacious layout with a lot of green space for recreation.

The Germans do not seem to be as shy as the Americans with designing in a contemporary style. There is something very fresh about the rationality of a German layout, broken down by colors and fun façade geometries. I tend to agree with the theory that because in the US, we do not have too many “old” charming buildings, we feel compelled to recreate the “age”, while in Europe and other places around the world, there are rich layers of history, liberating the architect to design with the spirit of the day.

After I passed the contemporary development, I dove back into the historic urban fabric, finding myself again walking towards the center. The open space offered by a contemporary community was nice for a change, but there is nothing that can compare to an urban street with back to back facades as in this area of Karlsruhe. You may think, “How can this be recreated in the new world”? Well, I don’t think that we need to design historic buildings to achieve this, but follow the urban planning best practices and use attractive façade proportions and materials. This is done in new areas of Copenhagen very successfully.

Urban fabric from the early 20th century located centrally and slightly to the east.

Next, I walked into a centrally located park and found myself in the middle of the Karlsruhe Technology Institute campus. The sun was already setting and it was getting colder. Luckily, I reached the hot-water bottle installation, had a little laugh, and blending in with some of the college kids, I walked into the buildings to warm up.

With my warmth and curiosity regained, I walked out of the chemistry building and continued on. The next stop was the large auditorium full of students listening to the professor. With the excepting of wearing medical masks, the student’s looked just like we did when we attended UC Berkeley with my business partner Yevgenia Watts. As a matter of fact, our friendship began in one of these auditoriums when I was stressing out about taking one of my first exams (a side effect of being an “A” student).

After a pleasant nostalgic feeling, I remembered that I am still walking without a map and wondered if I will resurface in the right place to catch my light rail to return to the hotel.

I walked out of the campus, lead by a church tower ahead of me, and ran into rail tracks. Was this the right line? I continued on and reached a train stop. The number of my train was on the board and in my baby German, I asked another person waiting for a train if this train would go in my direction. It would!

I hopped on the next train with evening commuters and one very unhappy and drunk foreigner. He screamed on the train in broken German and from what I understood, was unhappy with the politics. It reminded me of walking on Market Street in San Francisco or in the streets of my hometown Oakland. With Covid-19, there are many more people who need mental care in the streets, not only in the US, but also around the world.

I sat next to the window, looking at the evening streets and the setting sun as the train pulled me back to the south-west edge where I started my journey. I never reached the center, so my journey to Karlsruhe is not over yet, but the new experiences are now in my head and ready to be used on future architecture and urban design projects.

Thanks for coming with me on this adventure, let’s do it again soon!