Hakan Rotmwrt

We are often told that the war in 1945 was what caused the destruction of many old European city centers. In reality the destruction had started far earlier, in the 1920s with many "progressive" (and socialist) architectural creations. Here Potsdamer Platz, Berlin, 1914 to 1932.pic.twitter.com/4UPEmSe7rp

Another good example is the Mossehaus (a newspaper building) in Berlin. Damaged during the Spartacist (communist) uprising in 1919, it was rebuilt by Mendelsohn in 1921-23. Erich M was a particularly sinister architect, but modernist infighting meant the US was spared his works.pic.twitter.com/3RPilCqjDT

Another highly interesting thing visible in photos of Potsdamer Platz: the anti-human, visually disturbing focus on the horizontal over the vertical (in nature good things grow upward, bad things sideways), a "need for speed". Today all cities are dominated by horizontal bldgs.pic.twitter.com/WsqM66NBPI

This "biophilia" (an inherent human love for biological shapes and things) is the reason why many of the early skyscrapers in New York (they are dominated by vertical lines) "feels" so much better than the newer (oddly horizontal) skyscrapers dominated by horizontal lines.pic.twitter.com/N4uWLAUqS5

The best architects today are aware of the need to break up the horizontal in buildings, even when tasked to create them. Baker Street Bldg by Quinlan Terry is a good example: it looks like several different houses, but is actually just one giant landscraper of corporate offices.pic.twitter.com/aqIvXgcjbY