Berlin Maps

Over the past century, Berlin has undergone countless transformations, marked by rapid growth, destruction, and survival and halting revival as a Siamese-twin city. This last phase was characterized by stagnation or even shrinkage, which strengthened Berlin’s unusual polycentric settlement form, with no clear core. The changing dynamics of antagonistic political forces forged a variety of spatial characteristics and abnormalities.

In 18 chapters Berlin Maps offers an atlas of the special, strange, or undiscovered phenomena of the German capital: natural and artificial mountains, escape tunnels and enclaves, swamps and moors, the four walls, and much more. The book presents architectural geography, urban history, political upheavals, scenic spaces, and curiosities with relish in newly drawn maps and detailed illustrations.

The authors Sebastian Felix Ernst and Jonas Tratz are native Berliners and co-founders of the architecture firm FAKT. Together they taught at the DIA Institute of Architecture (FH Anhalt), where they explored new concepts for Berlin‘s periphery. Both are fellows of the German Academy Rome, Villa Massimo.