41 - Will Alsop

Will Alsop (Northampton 1947–2018 London), *Design for Potsdamer Platz, Berlin*, 1992, Pen and ink, black chalk, gouache, and watercolor on smooth, primed paper; signed and dated in pen and ink lower right; 60 x 85 cm; mounted in a mat and under glass in a white anodized aluminum frame; overall size: 80 x 100 cm. Limit 360,- In 1991–1992, British architect Will Alsop, together with his then-partner Jan Störmer (*1942) and artist Bruce McLean (*1944), submitted a radical, visionary design for the urban planning ideas competition for Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz in Berlin, which won 4th prize and was therefore not built. Instead of a rigid historical reconstruction or austere perimeter block architecture, the team designed a poetic, technoid large-scale structure. The plan called for flexible office units, glass-enclosed atria, climate buffer zones, and seamless transitions to the Landwehr Canal and the former Wall zone. Architect Rem Koolhaas was a member of the jury and passionately supported Alsop’s design. When it became clear that Hans Stimmann, then Berlin’s Senate Director of Public Works, intended to push through a conservative “urban repair” plan, Koolhaas resigned from the jury in protest. These utopian and process-oriented ideas were documented in the book *City of Objects—Designs on Berlin* (1992).