Interbau Apartment House
Altonaer Straße 4-14
Berlin-Tiergarten
Germany
Oscar Niemeyer and Soares Filho
1957
In the south-west corner of the
Hansaquarter lies the eight-story building by Oscar Niemeyer and Soares
Filho, Brazil's contribution to the International
Builders Fair of 1957.
The concrete frame construction rests on V-shaped pillars and is 27m high,
72m long and 15m wide. Its longitudinal axis runs north-south.
There are 78 apartments with altogether 5089m².
The facade consists of rectangular loggias whose uniformity is broken
up by a band of windows in the 5th story, which was intended as
the common room of the building. This shared story was to create a feeling of community
by providing space for events - an idea called 'conjunto'
(free story) in Brazil.
The most significant feature is
the tower next to the building, which holds
a service elevator and passenger elevator. The tower is connected to the
main building by passages only at the 5th
and 7th stories. Because of this inhabitant-unfriendly
solution people mostly use one of the six staircases in the center. As
one of the building's long-term (since 1959) inhabitants commented, when
told that Niemeyer also
built Brazil's
capital Brasilia: 'But
he can't even build a proper elevator;
how can he build
a city?'
