Unidad A y Unidad B en Berlin Masque: Viviendas para una transformación cultural

Carlos Barberá Pastor

doi:10.12795/astragalo.2025.i38.09

Authors

Carlos Barberá Pastor Universidad de Alicante, Departamento de Expresión Gráfica, Composición y Proyectos, Escuela Politécnica Superior https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3401-3670

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12795/astragalo.2025.i38.09

Abstract

The Unit A and Unit B, pieces designed by John Hejduk in his Berlin Masque proposal, are a type of minimal and mobile housing. They were designed for a city where, at that time, thousands of housing units were being planned as part of the IBA Berlin competition, aimed at reconstructing neighborhoods adjacent to the wall built during the Cold War. The research work hypothesizes that these units were also designed for homeless people. Some projects, such as House for the Homeless, presented for the city of Riga or Bovisa in Milan, and the conditions expressed in the explanation of the Unit A and Unit B project, support this hypothesis. The connection with other projects by John Hejduk, such as the proposal developed prior to Units A and B, titled Retreat Masque, defines the artistic nature of these proposals. The visibility of the housing units in public space, the nature of activity, and the absence of a regulatory framework governing activities in public spaces mark the principles by which the design of these housing units has a transformative character in the city inherited from modernity. The social, cultural, and artistic transformation of the housing design is contextualized within other proposals put forward during the 20th century and the thoughts of Hannah Arendt on public space in the city.

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Author Biography

Carlos Barberá Pastor, Universidad de Alicante, Departamento de Expresión Gráfica, Composición y Proyectos, Escuela Politécnica Superior

Carlos Barberá Pastor. University of Alicante. Department of Graphic Expression, Composition and Projects. University of Alicante. Ctra. San Vicente del Raspeig s/n. 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante. Valencia, 1970. He holds a doctorate in architecture from the UPV with a thesis entitled Variaciones de la Bye House de John Hejduk (Variations on John Hejduk's Bye House). Professor of Architectural Composition 1 at the University of Alicante. He wrote three articles on John Hejduk for the journal Massilia (2004, 2005, 2008) , for the journal RITA -Revista Indexada de Textos Académicos- (V.7, 2017), for the journal Ppa, Proyecto, Progreso y Arquitectura ( V. 19, 2018), for the journal FEMINISMOS (V. 32, 2018), for the journal ZARCH. Journal of interdisciplinary studies in Architecture and Urbanism ( V. 13, 2019), for the journal CIUDAD Y TERRITORIO. ESTUDIOS TERRITORIALES (Article accepted, to be published) or the journal SOBRE_ (Article accepted, to be published). He has published in the collection of architecture ear of the School of Architecture of Reus (V.5, 2009), has written about the architect Josep Llinàs in the magazine TC (V.101, 2012) and about the architect Juan Marco in the magazine Summa + (V.118, 2010). He has participated in conferences with papers on the architects John Hejduk, Le Corbusier, Josep Lluis Sert and Hans Scharoun, the film directors Yasujiro Ozu and Isaki Lacuesta and the painter Joan Miró.

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