| Name: | Flamboyant Soupault |
| Distance: | 4.96 km |
| Date and time: | 11th of July 2020, 13:45 |
| Total time: | 1 hour 50 minutes |
| Weather: | 22ºC with lengthy sunny spells |
The randomly generated amble walk, titled Flamboyant Soupault, starts in the heart of the Künstlerkolonie (artists’ colony) at the south end of Wilmersdorf, Berlin. Crossing underneath the old A104 motorway at Breitenbachplatz, we make a quick detour into the residential area south-west until it loops back around the square itself.
Briefly entering the district of Dahlem, we pass two residential developments of the 1920s, but both distinctive from each other. First, we follow down Schorlemerallee with its prominent row homes in the style of New Objectivity built in the late 1920s 1. One block north we find a housing complex built in the early 1920s in the style of Expressive Realism, functional and clean forms, with expressive elements used sparingly 2. In the middle of the complex a big, private garden; it is looking ever inviting through the lattice of the closed, wooden gates.
To finish off the walk, we follow the path back to the area of Breitenbachplatz and its motorway on-ramp, or rather a few hundred metres north of it. Constructed in the late 1970s, this is one of the most extended apartment complexes which can be fully walked-through. One of its architects, Georg Heinrichs, thinks of the vertical form to be too aggressive, so he designed a massive apartment complex, lovingly called the snake (both because of the street name, but also because of its form) and built it on top of a motorway. It’s quite surreal to be sitting in the yards of this complex, knowing that there is a motorway underneath, but only faintly hearing cars over bird songs.
