Mark Lee is a founder and Principal of Johnston Marklee, an architecture practice which collaborates with advanced research teams composed of innovative thinkers and designers from professional and academic disciplines. From a knowledge of both architectural history and contemporary discourse and construction practices, Lee directs the practice’s design teams in critical research combined with efficiency and precision in production.
Lee has written and lectured widely on his research regarding culture specific landscapes and new strategies in material form and technology, and has been invited as a visiting critic at numerous institutions around the world, including Harvard University, Princeton University, Cornell University, University of Michigan, UCLA, UIC, T.U. Berlin, ETH Zurich, Rice University, and SCI-Arc.
An American in Berlin, Mark Lee found the city – especially the dramatic sky and generous outdoor cafés – a very pleasant place to spend two years as a guest professor in architecture at the Technische Universität. But more than the environment, Mark says the city’s unique creative environment reminded him of his hometown Los Angeles.
»I loved being in Berlin. Other than Shanghai, Berlin is the only city I know that is truly a palimpsest of the twentieth century. Not that previous centuries didn’t leave their mark, but one really experiences the scars of the last hundred years imprinted in the city: every major world event, catastrophe, superpower tensions; all have left traces in Berlin. It feels like being at the crossroads of the world when in Berlin.«
»The creative energy in Berlin is indisputable. The “poor but sexy” image still works, but it is a moniker that has an expiry date attached to it. My hometown, Los Angeles, another city famous for its creative energy, was once just known as a place where art and things were made to be sold elsewhere — in New York or London. But over time LA has evolved into a city where not only things are made, but transactions are made as well. In the same way I feel Berlin’s specific conditions and infrastructure that nurture its creativity – whether the affordability or the open mindset – also need to grow into something else. A creative city does not stay like Peter Pan forever. I wish it were as much as a financial capital as it is a creative capital.«
Konstantin Grcic is a part-time lover of Berlin: His base for most of the month is Munich, but he has chosen Berlin as his alternative occasional home, one in high style as you’d expect from this internationally known industrial designer: an Alvar Aalto-designed apartment in the Hansaviertel.
Konstantin Grcic is an industrial designer. Born in Munich in 1965, he became a cabinetmaker before going to London to study Design at the Royal College of Art. In 1991 he started his own studio in Munich where he has been based ever since. Since 2010 he has also had a studio/apartment in Berlin.
»I don’t plan to move to Berlin permanently. I like the differences between it and Munich. The periodic change is good for my head. I spend about 10 days a month in Berlin – not only because of my girlfriend, but also because I can concentrate on work here. It sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Most people don’t come here to concentrate on work. But there are some days when I hardly leave my apartment. I look out from the sixth floor onto the Tiergarten, and beyond that, the Television Tower. My apartment is like a throne. I go jogging through the government quarter and feel like I’m in the midst of things.«
»The Hansaviertel has always fascinated me. For me it’s emblematic of Berlin, even if it is quite atypical. It’s a utopia, an island. Although it is already 60 years old, its architecture remains a symbol of free, open, and future-oriented thinking. There is something very optimistic about it.«
»For me the greatest surprise here is to discover the areas in Berlin that lie between the better-known neighborhoods. When you are no longer a tourist, then your radius expands. You ride your bike and slowly the pieces come together. Then you realize how different the neighborhoods are, all the green, the canals and the parks, the beautiful plazas – I never would have expected to find such beauty in this city.«
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