Course: Advanced Topic Studio / Almost Full Circle

Term: Winter 2017

Instructor: Mohamed Sharif

While at 80 meters tall, the tower has ambitions of Mies’s unbuilt glass skyscraper, its organizational logic is aligned with the neighboring Neue Nationalgalerie. In true Mies fashion, this is actually a single-story project. The floor plate rotates 45-degrees as it stacks, creating a disorienting ascent. The individual story is articulated by the doubling of the floor plate. The structural core frees the exterior from columns. Void carved out of the floor plate creates a central atrium. The resulting tall and narrow spaces on the perimeter form an intimate relationship between the user, art, and a panoramic view of the city.

The double-height halfway up serves programmatically as a large open space for large exhibitions or events, and formally to replace the conventional tower “hat” by repositioning the spectator’s focus to the center.

Mies was conscious of not only reflection and effect on environment, but also how the environment is perceived from the interior. The pink tinting of glazing manipulates the perception of context, so that the viewer is looking at the city of Berlin, literally, through rose-colored lenses.