Berlin's 2 Art Nouveau buildings represent the city's brief but distinctive engagement with the decorative style that swept Europe at the turn of the 20th century. Hans Poelzig's Babylon Kino — though often classified under Neue Sachlichkeit — carries Art Nouveau DNA in its curved facade and ornamental interior details. Oskar Kaufmann's Volksbühne brings theatrical Art Nouveau to one of Berlin's most important cultural institutions, with a facade that dramatises the experience of entering a "people's theatre."
Berlin's Art Nouveau was always more restrained than its Parisian or Brussels equivalents — less organic ornament, more geometric discipline — anticipating the rationalism that would soon overtake it.
