It's hard to watch a Plattenbau and to think about something beautiful, we know it, but it's also very sad when you have to watch when they are going to be demolished, expecially in the city center of an old DDR city like Magdeburg.
The platten is a building whose structure is constructed of large, prefabricated concrete slabs. The word is a compound of Platte (in this context: panel) and Bau (building) and they were very popular in the East Germany way to response to the need of houses after the WWII and then in the 80's.
In East Germany, Plattenbau areas have been designated as Neubaugebiet (“New development area”) made in several common plattenbau designs. The most common series was the P2, followed by the WBS 70, the WHH GT 18, and Q3A. The designs were flexible and could be built as towers or rows of apartments of various heights. The platten were then decorated in different way from time to time and from city to city, with ceramics decorations, socialistic wall paintings and statues.
Unfortunately they're not very comfortable, they were small and boring in the idea that they were all the same and in the long term they'll be demolished, but unfortunately (even more) they're leaving the place for new luxury appartments which usually they don't look better, they're often just their equivalent in a contemporary way.
The platten is a building whose structure is constructed of large, prefabricated concrete slabs. The word is a compound of Platte (in this context: panel) and Bau (building) and they were very popular in the East Germany way to response to the need of houses after the WWII and then in the 80's.
In East Germany, Plattenbau areas have been designated as Neubaugebiet (“New development area”) made in several common plattenbau designs. The most common series was the P2, followed by the WBS 70, the WHH GT 18, and Q3A. The designs were flexible and could be built as towers or rows of apartments of various heights. The platten were then decorated in different way from time to time and from city to city, with ceramics decorations, socialistic wall paintings and statues.
Unfortunately they're not very comfortable, they were small and boring in the idea that they were all the same and in the long term they'll be demolished, but unfortunately (even more) they're leaving the place for new luxury appartments which usually they don't look better, they're often just their equivalent in a contemporary way.
