Photo Gallery When Architecture Goes Wrong
The electrical transformer in Bielefeld that started it all. Appalled by this sculpture, Berlin architect Turit Fröbe set out to collect Germany's worst architectural sins, also known as Bausünden.
After a weekend in Bielefeld, she had collected 50 to 60 examples. A trip to Hanover was equally fruitful. Here, a not-entirely-successful extension to the Albrecht Dürer House in Nuremberg.
Fröbe said that early on in her project, she realized that while abhorrent architecture isn't hard to find, truly original disasters are rare. "I became a fan of these Bausünden," she says. Here, holiday apartments in Scharbeutz, on the Baltic Sea not far from Lübeck.
"I realized that Bausünden have very different qualities," Fröbe says. "I wanted the original, courageous, photogenic Bausünden." Here, an abomination in Darmstadt.
"I think it's almost as difficult to find a good Bausünde as it is to find good architecture," says Turit Fröbe. Here, Neumarkt square in Bielefeld.
In 2007, Fröbe published a page-a-day calendar with 365 of the ugliest buildings in Germany. This particular example comes from Kiel.
A photo from early on in Fröbe's search, a parking garage in Bielefeld. Originally, Fröbe was an advocate of tearing down the country's most offensive structures. She has since changed her mind.
After World War II, Germany sought to rebuild quickly. Some of the buildings that resulted, like here in Dortmund, have not aged well.
"It is the good Bausünden that you can develop a relationship to," says Fröbe. Here, a particularly astounding eyesore in Duisburg.
Everyone likes a pedestrian zone. This one in the town of Halle might take some getting used to, however.
"Some things are no longer trendy, particularly when we are talking about postwar architecture," says Fröbe. An understatement, as seen by this image of a church in Hamburg.
Fröbe now advocates taking measures to reintegrate particularly abhorrent buildings into the city. "Many cities don't take care of some of these buildings which are no longer fashionable," she says. "If they just let them sit there and don't do anything, there is no way for people to develop a positive feeling toward them." This building is in Berlin.
A church in Berlin. There are many in Germany who would like to see particularly offensive buildings torn down and replaced with prewar-style structures.
This overpass in Giessen is known by locals as the "elephant toilet."
"Back then," says Fröbe in reference to the postwar phase of reconstruction, "modernist structures were welcomed. But today, they are a catastrophe. But that doesn't mean it has to stay that way." The architectural sin pictured here is in the western German city of Wuppertal.
The concrete screen facade is one that can be seen on buildings throughout Germany. This particular structure is in Cologne.
Cologne is celebrated for its cathedral. But its skyline is also dominated by other, less attractive structures -- like the telecommunications building at the far left of this picture. "Nobody would think of putting such a structure in the middle of a city anymore," says Merlin Bauer, who launched a project to develop an appreciation for such structures.
