Germany Architecture Guide

Germany has 33 architectural styles represented in its built landscape. Here is what to look for when identifying the most prominent ones.

Modernist (41 buildings)

The most widespread style in the catalogue. Look for flat roofs, ribbon windows, white or light-coloured rendered facades, and an absence of applied ornament. Structural clarity is the point — load-bearing walls give way to open floor plans. Key examples range from Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's minimal pavilions to post-war civic buildings across Berlin and beyond.

Brutalist (20 buildings)

Raw exposed concrete (béton brut) left unfinished as the final surface. Massive, sculptural volumes with deep-set windows and board-marked textures. In Germany, Brutalism often appears in sacred architecture — Gottfried Böhm's pilgrimage church in Velbert and his churches in Köln and Bensberg are defining examples. Also prominent in Berlin's post-war housing estates.

Expressionist (10 buildings)

Dramatic, sculptural forms that prioritise emotion over function. Look for unusual curves, faceted surfaces, pointed or crystalline shapes, and dynamic silhouettes. Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam is the textbook case — a flowing, almost organic form in rendered brick. Berlin's Kreuzkirche and the Church at Hohenzollernplatz also display the jagged, angular variant.

Bauhaus (8 buildings)

Geometric purity, primary colours as accents, and an insistence that form follows function. Flat roofs, steel-frame curtain walls, and open plans. The movement started in Dessau-Roßlau — the Bauhaus building itself and the Masters' Houses remain the canonical examples. In Berlin, the Bauhaus-Archiv and the Horseshoe Settlement carry the legacy forward.

Deconstructivist (6 buildings)

Fragmented geometry, sharp angles, tilted planes, and deliberate visual instability. Surfaces collide rather than align. Weil am Rhein hosts three landmark examples on the Vitra Campus — Zaha Hadid Architects' Fire Station and Frank Gehry's factory and museum buildings. In Berlin, Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum uses slashing zinc-clad voids to make absence visible.

Neue Sachlichkeit (5 buildings)

"New Objectivity" — a cooler, more rational counterpart to Expressionism that emerged in the late 1920s. Clean lines, functional layouts, restrained facades with horizontal emphasis. Less theatrical than Expressionism, more austere than later Modernism. Hans Poelzig's Babylon Kino and the Siemens City complex in Berlin are representative.

1910s–1920s · Expressionism

Architecture as emotional statement. Sculptural, often crystalline forms that rejected the rational box. Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower in Potsdam (1921) and Fritz Högers' faceted church facades in Berlin define the movement. Emerged alongside the Weimar Republic's creative explosion.

1919–1933 · Bauhaus & Neues Bauen

The Bauhaus school in Dessau-Roßlau became the most influential design movement of the 20th century. Flat roofs, curtain walls, open plans — Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe established a new architectural vocabulary. Berlin's Horseshoe Settlement and the Siemens City complex applied these ideas at urban scale. Ended abruptly with the Nazi rise to power.

1950s–1970s · Post-war Reconstruction & Brutalism

A divided Germany rebuilt in two parallel modes. In the West, architects like Hans Scharoun (Berlin State Library) pursued expressive Modernism, while Gottfried Böhm created a unique strand of sacred Brutalism — raw concrete churches in Velbert, Köln, and Bensberg that are among Europe's most powerful post-war buildings. East Berlin developed its own Modernist identity with buildings like Kino International.

1990s–present · Reunification & Contemporary

The fall of the Wall turned Berlin into the world's largest architecture laboratory. Daniel Libeskind's Jewish Museum, Zaha Hadid Architects' Fire Station, and Frank Gehry's DZ Bank brought Deconstructivism and parametric design to Germany. Contemporary practices continue to push boundaries with adaptive reuse, green architecture, and experimental housing.