Photo Gallery Germany's Ugliest Buildings
Architectural historian Turit Fröbe has put together a collection of Germany's architectural horrors. Pictured here is a pink shopping center known as Alexa, situated on Alexanderplatz -- a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin.
The "Happy Rizzi Haus" in the German city of Braunschweig was designed by American artist James Rizzi in the late 1990s. "I feel sorry for the people who work there or have to look at it every day," says Fröbe.
This architectural creation dates back to the 1970s -- the tower known as "Bierpinsel" (beer paint brush) is situated in Berlin's south western district of Steglitz.
Berlin's "HumboldtBox", which was built in 2011, is used as an exhibition space. German newspaper Tagesspiegel once described it as an "architectural monster on a galactic level".
A beach on the Baltic Sea features a series of "Plattenbauten", or buildings made of large, prefabricated concrete slabs, often associated with the drab architectural aesthetic of Communist East Germany.
A bus stop outside the Cologne Cathedral forms a part of the "Domplatte", a concrete pedestrian precinct built in the 1960s. Good Bausünden, says Fröbe, are those that draw attention to themselves through and clash with their surroundings.
An electricity box in the northwestern town of Bielefeld has been transformed into an art installation made of concrete. Fröbe's book contains casual snapshots, ones that she took in passing. "I wanted to show the houses exactly as I found them in their urban surroundings. Absolutely unprettified," she says.
A mural in the eastern city of Frankfurt an der Oder only makes sense from one particular angle.
A balcony in the German capital has been transformed by its owner -- it now houses dozens of garden gnomes.
Historian Turit Fröbe refers to houses like these as "schizo homes" -- buildings with two clashing faces that seem to demarcate which side of the house belongs to whom.
The Riebeckplatz, a square in the center of the eastern town of Halle, has been extensively renovated -- its famous "Fäustemonument" (fist monument) remains. Fröbe predicts that as time passes, the Bausünden she so cherishes will be replaced by mediocre new buildings. So while they can, she concludes, people should learn to appreciate them.
