Essay: This Could Have Been Berlin

The visionary architecture of Engelbert Kremser

Text: Florian Heilmeyer
This small pavilion built in 1985 in the south of Berlin remains Engelbert Kremser’s most famous building. Small in size, it demonstrates the possibilities of freely forming concrete buildings from the “earth architecture” technique he invented. The building is ageing well, as seen in this picture taken in August 2013. (Photo: Schirin Torabi)
The architect and painter Engelbert Kremser left Berlin in 1990. Prior to that, he had been trying for 30 years to come to terms with Berlin’s building sector, with its lack of imagination and fear of the new. Only a few of his strange yet fascinating designs ever made it to reality, but his spirited collages from 1969 make us wonder whether an utterly different Berlin might have been possible.

Engelbert Kremser sits in a beautiful little house in Potsdam, surrounded mostly by things he has made himself, slotted-together furniture whose odd forms recall Art Nouveau. Each piece of furniture can be cut from a standard sheet of plywood from the DIY store. The shapes are laid out on the sheet in such a way that no wood is wasted. They are then cut out, fitted together and painted white. Anyone could do this themselves. Has he tried to have them mass-produced? “No, no”, says Kremser. “I’ve never had a good experience working with manufacturers”. Kremser just makes things for himself; he has no more expectations from industrial manufacture, neither for furniture nor buildings.

Engelbert Kremser in August 2013, sitting on his terrace, which he constructed himself, on one of the chairs he designed. (Photo: Torsten Seidel)
Kremser bought his small house in Potsdam in 1990. Since then he has made it his own, building a concrete portal in front of it, adding an organic-style terrace, and some mosaïcs. He furnished it with organically formed shelves, closets, tables, and chairs, all designed and built by himself. The chandelier in this photo is also – as you might have guessed – Kremser’s own work. (Photos: Torsten Seidel)
From Racibórz to Berlin

Engelbert Kremser was born in 1938 in Racibórz. When only ten years old, Kremser discovered painting when he met the painter Bolesław Juszczęć: “He showed me all the techniques, he wanted to make me into a painter. But I chose architecture, which seemed to me a good connection. Architecture initially emerges in your head, then it somehow must be put on paper. You must be able to express yourself before you start to build.”

Kremser′s father brought the family to Hanover in 1957 where Kremser began studying architecture in 1959. “In Racibórz, we were Germans. But in Hanover, all of a sudden, we were regarded as Poles. It was a terrible time, the people were poor and rude. As migrants, we were insulted everwhere, even at college.” Later when he visited an open, pre-Wall Berlin together with fellow students, he fell in love with the city immediately: “Berlin was so big and diverse. People came from all over; where someone came from wasn’t important at all. Here, I was no longer a migrant; suddenly, I was a human being.” They visited the International Building Exhibition in Hansaviertel. “We saw the buildings by Niemeyer, Aalto, Baumgarten, and Frei Otto. There was nothing like that in Hanover. You could say I moved to Berlin in 1961 for two reasons: for the architecture and to be a human.”

(Photo: Torsten Seidel)
Kremser developed an organic way of forming architecture, where concrete is poured directly onto sculpted earth. The concrete can be formed by hand or with simple tools, much like a sculptor would work. Afterwards the earth is dug away from the hardened form. His first building with this method, which had never been tried before, was a garage with a terrace – which he had to demolish again and again before arriving at a suitable outcome. (Photo: E. Kremser)
Erdarchitektur

In Berlin, Kremser devoted himself to organic architecture. “In college, we were allowed to “scharoun-ize”, “corbu-ize”, and “aalto-ize”, as they said. Of course there were many who still kept to Bauhaus-style boxes. But not me.” At first, he sees the “boxes” as just another architectural style, but later they symbolized the enemy for Kremser. “The problem is that most of these boxes are not able to create any relationship with their surroundings – they simply ignore it. They are just boxes.” He wants to build differently: soft and dynamically, creating fluid connections and smooth transitions. Contacts with Frei Otto, Stephan Polónyi and Hans Scharoun, in whose office he worked for two months on the Berliner Philharmonie, confirmed his chosen direction.
In a book on shell structures, he discovered the Albuquerque Civic Auditorium from 1955, where an existing mound of earth was reshaped to simply pour a large concrete slab over it. Foundations and supports were put under the slab, then the earth was dug away resulting in a domed hall 66 metres in diameter. “Using the earth itself as formwork – I found that idea so fascinating! Only the slab’s smooth shape bothered me. I wanted to stomp around on it, destroying its perfect form to give it some character.” That’s how Kremser came up with the idea he has pursued ever since, which he gave the name “Erdarchitektur” or Earth architecture.

From earth and plaster, he made 1:50 scale models to test his ideas a little. He built a garage for a doctor, using a mound of earth to model the pourable concrete by hand. “A disaster! First, everything went wrong; I had no experience and no one had ever done something like this before. The concrete kept sliding down and I had to demolish it again and again. But slowly I learned how wonderfully you can model concrete by hand – what viscosity it needs.”
»You could say I moved to Berlin in 1961 for two reasons: for the architecture and to be a human.«

For children and plants only

A commission followed: a playground with a playhouse. In Märkisches Viertel of all places: a fig leaf for one of the cheapest examples of postwar modernism in West Berlin. Kremser worked for eight years on the building, which merges with the playground and the landscape. It was pretty obvious from the very beginning that to realize this building was an experiment. But at some point during the eight years, his client started to lose faith in Kremser, the sculptor, who worked spontaneously and mainly with his hands on-site. Then as his design couldn’t be verified using conventional methods, the structural engineer withheld his approval. Had Kremser not found prominent advocates, such as Arup Engineers, who wanted to see the experiment completed, the building would probably never have been finished.
Construction of the “Café am See” (1983-85). This pavilion is part of a new park, called Britzer Garten. Kremser’s construction technique had progressed since his first attempts. Today it is seen as an idiosyncratic and impressive structure, merging with the landscape around it. (Photos: E. Kremser)
Disputes with the public authorities continued to plague Kremser. For the park pavilion that Kremser built in 1985 in Berlin-Britz, he had to overcome a lot of opposition. With so few commissions, Kremser continued developing his ideas for earth architecture mainly on paper. But he was convinced that his construction method could also be used to build high-rise buildings at no additional cost: He demonstrated this in 1989 with an office building for Berlin’s Pflanzenschutzamt (Plant protection office) where the floor slabs were cast individually in earth formwork and then lifted into place. It was to be the last building he realized in Berlin.

“I wanted to build big housing schemes. But my architecture was perceived as suitable for children and plants only,” says Kremser. “No one could imagine it for adults.” Even Scharoun’s masterpiece, the Philharmonie, was contested in Berlin for years. Berlin’s Senate lacked the courage and private investors were virtually non-existent in West Berlin. As the Wall fell and Berlin was overwhelmed by the frenzy of reunification, a formal architecture was prescribed for the city that excluded Kremser’s earth architecture from the outset. “I didn’t need to participate in any more competitions. I just needed to look at the jury, then I already knew that my ideas wouldn’t stand a chance.”
»To build something yourself, to make it with your own hands – that’s the greatest joy.«

“Cafe am See” in the Britzer Garten, Berlin. With its terraces and arcades, the building connects to its context in many ways. (Photo: E. Kremser)
Aggravating Places

The few buildings Kremser has realized aren’t that imposing as structures. It’s rather their concept, their richness of ideas, and the courage to try to find a completely different way to think about architecture and city that’s impressive. What might have been possible with earth architecture is best demonstrated by 14 photomontages that Kremser made in 1969. He photographed the buildings that aggravated him the most on various squares in West Berlin, and then cut them out from the photographs and replaced them with his own designs. He points out that these collages are not at all capricious: “These are studies made to correct scale, with the thinking behind them on how they could be realized. I wanted to demonstrate what could be possible, in what direction and to what dimensions we could be thinking now.”
Berlin‘s Pflanzenschutzamt (Plant Protection Office), built from 1986-1989, is Kremser’s last realized building. It is a demonstration of yet another construction method, where only the floor plates are cast with fluid concrete in earthen moulds and then lifted into place. A more conventional method therefore, but one which allows for the construction of much larger structures – even high-rises could be made using this method he claims. (Photos: E. Kremser)
In 1969 Kremser made a series of 17 collages. He took pictures of the new buildings in Berlin-Charlottenburg that annoyed him the most, primarily modern “boxes”, then replaced them with his own ideas. In this picture you see his alternative to the SFB building on Theodor-Heuss-Platz.
»I wanted to demonstrate in what direction and in what dimensions we could be thinking now.«

Kremser’s alternative visions for: Ernst-Reuter-Platz (above), Europa Center on Breitscheidplatz (right). (All images: Engelbert Kremser, 1969)
Is he unhappy that these studies have not become reality? Or does he sense that these buildings absolutely could not have been realized that way back then, at least not with the same intensity and convincing energy that one finds in his collages? “No, no, I really wanted to build them. Of course, these are not finished designs. They are ideas for a different way of thinking. For many decades now, our cities have been built mainly of bland boxes – and the problem is that most people have grown accustomed to them. This familiarity with the boxes must first be overcome. People need to learn again to think about the built environment in a much more open-minded way. Time and again, people have come to me and said: ‘Those are fascinating ideas, but I have rectangular cabinets and a rectangular bed – how can they fit into your crooked building?’ Isn’t that tragic? I always answer: build them yourself. Every idiot can shop at IKEA! But to build something yourself, to grapple with it – to explore the object completely and then design it to your own needs and make it with your own hands – that’s the greatest joy.”

This could have been the Urania, on the corner of Kleiststrasse in central Berlin.
In 1990 Kremser left the city, moving into a little house in Potsdam where he has been working ever since, primarily with his own hands: laying colorful mosaics in the paths and on the walls, building his own furniture and lamps, painting, and drawing. Is this his retreat from architecture and – even more – from a building industry which determines the form of most buildings as that of the despised box?

“Not at all. I have never turned my back on architecture. It is just that I am not building at the moment because I have no clients. But painting and architecture were never different things for me. I am building on paper and waiting for the right client. Someone who appreciates my kind of architecture and wants to engage with it. Maybe even someone who wants to do some hands-on work with me. It’s such a joy to give shape to things with your own two hands.” Engelbert Kremser will celebrate his 75th birthday in December 2013. I guess he would agree if I describe him as a happy man.

Engelbert Kremser: “Im Berg” (In the mountain), acrylic paint on canvas, 100 x 155 cm, 2000