Berlin

TWENTY-FIRST CEN­TURY BERLIN

Twenty-first cen­tury Berlin is a dynamic palimpsest of its dis­rupted his­tory, one that is actively unfold­ing as the city and the Ger­man state attempts to res­ur­rect Berlin’s pres­ence as a global cap­i­tal. It has oscil­lated from being a global intel­lec­tual and artis­tic cen­ter, to a mar­gin­al­ized urban hostage of polit­i­cal divi­sions, and back to the gov­ern­men­tal and exis­ten­tial cen­ter of a uni­fied Germany.

Berlin is a city of rad­i­cal archi­tec­tural and urban trans­for­ma­tions. As a result, Berlin’s urban form is a col­lage of con­tra­dic­tory urban types, such as the nine­teenth cen­tury mon­u­men­tal­ity, the post-war cap­i­tal­ist devel­op­ments of West Berlin, the com­mu­nist hous­ing blocks of East Berlin, and the late twen­ti­eth and early twenty-first cen­tury recon­struc­tions of a uni­fied Berlin. No ter­ri­tory in Berlin is neu­tral: each build­ing, mon­u­ment, street, and dis­trict of the city embod­ies part of its volatile urban history.

Today, Berlin, and all of Ger­many, is a cen­ter of con­tem­po­rary and sus­tain­able archi­tec­ture and urban­ism. A strong soci­etal and polit­i­cal will to man­date high-performing, energy-efficient archi­tec­ture and urban strate­gies has pro­duced a body of con­tem­po­rary prece­dents that has become the bench­mark for sus­tain­able design glob­ally. Addi­tion­ally, sus­tain­able archi­tec­tural and urban design has proven to be a pow­er­ful sym­bol for a newly uni­fied Ger­many as a pro­gres­sive, respon­si­ble, and pros­per­ous state.

SCHOOL OF ARCHI­TEC­TURE BERLIN PROGRAM

Berlin is an ideal lab­o­ra­tory for study­ing the design of urban inter­ven­tions, the his­tory of nine­teenth, twen­ti­eth and twenty-first cen­tury archi­tec­ture and urban­ism, and cut­ting edge strate­gies for cre­at­ing sus­tain­able envi­ron­ments. The Berlin Pro­gram is inte­gral to the sequen­tial cur­ricu­lum of the School of Archi­tec­ture. This is a required semes­ter abroad for all third-year archi­tec­ture stu­dents and M.Arch I grad­u­ate stu­dents. Stu­dents take a full four-course load of archi­tec­ture stu­dio, lec­ture, sem­i­nar and Ger­man lan­guage courses. The semes­ter includes addi­tional lec­tures and office vis­its with some of Berlin’s thought lead­ers on his­tor­i­cal and con­tem­po­rary archi­tec­tural and urban issues.

The Berlin Pro­gram pro­vides a superb abroad expe­ri­ence that bal­ances a well struc­tured cur­ricu­lum with indi­vid­ual inde­pen­dence to pro­vide the most com­pre­hen­sive study abroad expe­ri­ence. The pro­gram orga­nizes the inter­na­tional flights, stu­dent hous­ing, the full-four course cur­ricu­lum, and a full array of day, overnight, and week-long field trips to the most impor­tant archi­tec­tural and urban sites in Berlin and all of Ger­many. Stu­dents have the options of liv­ing in shared stu­dent apart­ments or home-stay hous­ing with Berlin fam­i­lies to pro­vide an immer­sive cul­tural expe­ri­ence. Stu­dents will also have exten­sive inde­pen­dent time to explore Berlin, Ger­many, and Europe on their own.

APPLI­CA­TION INFORMATION

Please com­plete the online OISP appli­ca­tion and sub­mit an offi­cial tran­script and pho­to­copy of your pass­port ID page to 403 Richards Hall by March 1 for Fall and Octo­ber 1 for Spring. You can also upload the pass­port copy to the online application.

You will also be required to com­plete the forms requested by the pro­gram over­seas; how­ever, those are not avail­able at this time. Once we receive these forms, OISP will notify you and send you the documents.

PRO­GRAM FEE

The cost of your pro­gram is TBD until North­east­ern Uni­ver­sity con­firms the annual tuition; for under­grad­u­ate stu­dents, this will include NU tuition for 16 cred­its, housing, International SOS Assis­tance, and ISIC card. Flights and meals are not included.

VISA PROCESS

All stu­dents will be required to secure a stu­dent visa. Depend­ing on your nation­al­ity, you may be required to obtain the visa prior to arrival or in coun­try. Inter­na­tional stu­dents will need to secure a visa prior to arrival; U.S. pass­port hold­ers will secure their visa after a few days of arrival. Although this is case, there are a num­ber of doc­u­ments that will need to be com­pleted prior to arrival and be sent to the insti­tu­tion we will be work­ing with to start the process.  Please note that OISP will pro­vide nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion to all inter­na­tional stu­dents to obtain the visa; how­ever, ulti­mately, visa obtain­ment is a student’s respon­si­bil­ity. Addi­tion­ally, the pro­gram fee does not cover visa fees.

FLIGHTS

OISP will host pre-departure ori­en­ta­tion for all stu­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing in study abroad pro­grams. There will be a pre­sen­ta­tion on flights and the options avail­able to all stu­dents. Please note that in order to receive air­port pick up, you will need to be on the group flight from Boston on the offi­cial departure date.

COURSE REG­IS­TRA­TION

All stu­dents will be reg­is­tered by OISP for a Berlin, Archi­tec­ture place­holder course. This will show up on your Ban­ner reg­is­tra­tion as P/F until we receive your grades from abroad. Once we receive grades, we will post the indi­vid­ual NU courses and the let­ter grade. You will receive the fol­low­ing credit for your semes­ter abroad: Ger­man lan­guage course (GER­Mxxxx), Design Stu­dio (ARCH3155), Sem­i­nar (ARCH3361), and Archi­tec­ture and Urban­ism Abroad (ARCH3361).

ACADEMICS & STUDIOS

The fol­low­ing is some infor­ma­tion regard­ing the aca­d­e­mic aspects of the pro­gram. You will receive more infor­ma­tion upon arrival.

STU­DIO

Stu­dio will be held once a week, likely on Mon­days, and will last all day. It is manda­tory and every absence will result in a grade reduc­tion. Only med­ical excuses will be accepted.

HIS­TORY / SEMINAR

Besides stu­dio, there will also be a his­tory class and a sem­i­nar. These classes are also manda­tory. The sched­ules for these vary due to excur­sions and vis­i­tors. There are usu­ally no classes on Fri­days, but there are occa­sion­ally excur­sions. In many cases, if there is an excur­sion on Fri­day, there will be fewer classes dur­ing the week. A more detailed atten­dance pol­icy will be included in the syllabi.

GER­MAN

You will have Ger­man class at Die Neue Schule every day for the first two weeks and twice a week for the rest of the semes­ter. This course counts for credit. There will be exams and a final grade.

SCHED­ULE

You will receive a more detailed sched­ule upon arrival. Due to the many site vis­its and excur­sions, the sched­ule is sub­ject to change. You will be pro­vided a weekly sched­ule for you each Mon­day morn­ing so you know exactly what will hap­pen from week to week.

EXCUR­SIONS

Unless oth­er­wise stated, all excur­sions are manda­tory, and absences will only be tol­er­ated for med­ical rea­sons. The optional excur­sions are highly rec­om­mended. We strongly hope you will attend everything.

OPEN­ING TIMES

The stu­dio in Berlin runs dif­fer­ently than the stu­dio in Boston. Expect the stu­dio to be open only dur­ing the week until late evening. It is not pos­si­ble to keep the stu­dio open 24 hours. The semes­ter is meant to not only advance your archi­tec­ture stud­ies, but also for you to expe­ri­ence Berlin, so we do not want you in the stu­dio at all times. There is some flex­i­bil­ity on the week­ends, but that will be decided on a case by case basis.

SUP­PLIES

Berlin has sev­eral excel­lent archi­tec­ture sup­ply stores, but be aware that some items may be expen­sive. Small items like glue, pen­cils, pens, and erasers can be eas­ily bought in Berlin. More sophis­ti­cated sup­plies, like a tri­an­gle, met­ric scale, blades, and trace paper, can be expen­sive. Past stu­dents have sug­gested you might bring those items with you.

ACCOM­MO­DA­TIONS

Stu­dents have the option of liv­ing in apart­ments or doing a home-stay while study­ing in Berlin.

APART­MENTS

Loca­tion — The apart­ments are located in a res­i­den­tial area in the neigh­bor­hood of Kreuzberg, which is one of the most excit­ing areas in Berlin. It is a multi-cultural area favored by Turk­ish immi­grants, stu­dents, and artists. The near­est sub­way stop is a 5– to 10-minute walk from the apart­ments. It is a 3-minute sub­way ride to Alexan­der­platz, a main shop­ping cen­ter in Berlin, and about a 30-minute sub­way ride from the stu­dio, which is an aver­age com­mute time in Berlin. There are many gro­cery stores, drug stores, phar­ma­cies, and cafes in the area.

The apart­ments are fur­nished, which means chairs, beds, tables, tele­vi­sion, oven, refrig­er­a­tor, shower, toi­let, etc. Dishes and kitchen sup­plies are part of the apart­ment. Lexia pro­vides bed­ding and tow­els. There is no microwave and no inter­net. Stu­dents in the past have coped with the Inter­net sit­u­a­tion by buy­ing portable inter­net sticks that they can use through­out the city.

CLEAN­LI­NESS

It is expected that the apart­ments will be kept rea­son­ably clean through­out the semes­ter. There is a land­lord respon­si­ble for any repairs, includ­ing replac­ing light bulbs. It is impor­tant to recy­cle your garbage, turn off the lights when you leave, and lock your doors. You will get detailed infor­ma­tion about apart­ment main­te­nance dur­ing orientation.

LAUN­DRY

There are wash­ers and dry­ers on site. You will have to buy tokens from the land­lord in the morn­ings, and then you can do laun­dry 24-hours a day. You will get more detailed infor­ma­tion dur­ing orientation.

SAFETY

Berlin is a very safe city, but as with all cities, pre­cau­tions must be taken. It will be very impor­tant while you are abroad to always lock your apart­ment door both after leav­ing and upon enter­ing. This will be explained more thor­oughly on arrival day.

HOME­S­TAYS

There are some home­s­tays avail­able, so if you would pre­fer this option, please tell OISP. It is an excel­lent way to learn more about Ger­man cul­ture and become bet­ter inte­grated into Berlin. If you choose a home­s­tay, you will get more detailed infor­ma­tion dur­ing ori­en­ta­tion. The cost is equiv­a­lent to that of the apartment.

Optional trips are not included in the gen­eral fee and you will be required to pay extra for these if you choose to go.

POTS­DAM

Located an hour south of Berlin by train, this town is the home of the Ein­stein Tower and San­soucci Palace.

DESSAU

Dessau is the home of the Bauhaus and the Fed­eral Envi­ron­men­tal Agency.

HAM­BURG

Ham­burg is home to some amaz­ing water­front urban rede­vel­op­ment and deli­cious Ger­man food, along with the Reeperbahn.

RUHR VAL­LEY

A week­long trip the Ruhr Val­ley, includ­ing Dus­sel­dorf, Cologne, Wolfs­berg, and Essen.

PRAGUE

Optional week­end trip. Prague is one of the only cities that was not phys­i­cally affected by the war so it is still almost entirely Renais­sance and Gothic.  It is home to the Lennon Wall, Prague Cas­tle, the Charles Bridge and great nightlife.

DAY TRIP TO DESSAU

Writ­ten by Chelsea Brown Class of 2013

Class time in Berlin is divided between lec­tures and field trips. We are given the unique oppor­tu­nity of study­ing his­tor­i­cally rel­e­vant struc­tures, such as Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Altes Museum, and then vis­it­ing them shortly there­after. In addi­tion to sites in Berlin we have taken day trips to visit rel­e­vant archi­tec­tural sites through­out Ger­many. Recently we spent a day in Dessau, where we were able to visit two sites that each play a promi­nent role in our respec­tive sus­tain­abil­ity and his­tory courses.

First we toured the Fed­eral Envi­ron­men­tal Agency. Designed by Sauer­bruch Hut­ton, this office build­ing is a lead­ing exam­ple in sus­tain­able design. The organic form, bright col­ors, and ample light pro­vided a pleas­ant con­trast to the sur­round­ing for­mer indus­trial area of Dessau. Our tour guide, an employee of the Agency, explained in depth many of the sus­tain­able tech­nolo­gies incor­po­rated through­out the design. In addi­tion to solar pan­els, the build­ing also uti­lizes geot­her­mal heat exchange in the reduc­tion of energy con­sump­tion. The office build­ing also main­tains a con­nec­tion to its sur­round­ings in its use of locally sourced mate­ri­als, as well as pub­licly acces­si­ble audi­to­rium, library, and café.

In the after­noon we were given the oppor­tu­nity to tour the Bauhaus. Con­sid­ered one of high­est points of mod­ern archi­tec­ture, it was an excit­ing moment to walk through the entrance and feel as if we had finally “arrived.” After years of look­ing at pic­tures of the cam­pus designed by Wal­ter Gropius, we were able to wit­ness it first­hand. Our tour guide led us through a num­ber of the build­ings on the cam­pus, as well as into Gropius’ office, in which were sit­u­ated iconic pieces of Bauhaus fur­ni­ture. After words we lined up below the iconic “Bauhaus” sign to have our pic­ture taken, just as in all of the pic­tures we have seen.

DAY TRIP TO THE 1936 OLYMPIASTADION

Writ­ten by Bill Zahu­rak Class of 2014

The best way to learn about Ger­man His­tory is to expe­ri­ence it first-hand. While some stu­dents were orig­i­nally less than enthused about tak­ing a Ger­man his­tory course, we dis­cov­ered by the end of our trip that the Berlin semes­ter was a once in a life time expe­ri­ence to not only learn a about new cul­ture but to also be in the midst of it. One of the most antic­i­pated trips dur­ing the semes­ter was our visit to a Hertha Berlin soc­cer match held at the Olympias­ta­dion, home of the 1936 world Olympics.

Dri­ven by the ambi­tion of Nazi Ger­many, this sta­dium was built as a demon­stra­tion to the world that Ger­many was a ris­ing global super power. The mon­u­men­tal­ity of the sta­dium and its sur­round­ing devel­op­ment intended to invoke in vis­i­tors the idea that Ger­many pro­duces the best archi­tects and the best ath­letes. Although both the 1936 Olympics and the Hertha Berlin Soc­cer team are usu­ally remem­bered as upsets in Ger­man sports, our trip to the sta­dium is remem­bered as one of our favorites.

After a short train ride out­side of the city of Berlin, we arrived at the sta­dium and were given short a tour of the 1936 Olympic Site. We were awestruck when we real­ized how large every­thing was. From the Olympic Ring tow­ers to the upper roof of the sta­dium, which cov­ers 37,000 square meters and cov­ers 77,000 peo­ple, every­thing is built to a mon­u­men­tal scale we weren’t used to experiencing.

Dur­ing the trip we also got a chance to see Le Corbusier’s Berlin Unité, located con­ve­niently within walk­ing dis­tance of the sta­dium. Our his­tory course cov­ered a lot of ground in terms of both mate­r­ial and field trips.  We found these field trips incred­i­bly help­ful because we were able to learn much more about a build­ing we had stud­ied after see­ing it for ourselves.

What really made the trip for many of us was the soc­cer game itself. Most of us stopped by the sports mem­o­ra­bilia stand to buy some Hertha col­ors and then went right to the food sta­tions and beer tents to pre­pare for the match. Aside from every­thing we learned in class, being in Berlin was a great oppor­tu­nity to expe­ri­ence a new culture.