Potsdam Architecture Guide

How to Read Architecture in Potsdam

Potsdam's 6 architectural styles span from early 20th-century Expressionism to Contemporary adaptive reuse. Here is what to look for.

Expressionist

The Einstein Tower is the singular example — and one of the most important Expressionist buildings in Europe. Look for the continuous curved surfaces: Mendelsohn wanted it cast in concrete, but construction limitations forced a brick-and-render hybrid. The result is a tower that appears to be a single flowing form, without visible joints or seams. The observation dome sits like a head on shoulders.

Neoclassicist & Early Mies

Villa Urbig and House Riehl are Mies van der Rohe's early works, before his radical break toward glass and steel. Look for symmetry, pitched roofs, stone or rendered facades, and a restrained classicism. These houses engage with the landscape through terraces and gardens — a domestic scale that Mies would later abandon for universal space. Knowing what came after makes these buildings revelatory.

Adaptive Reuse

Brandlhuber's Antivilla converts a former lingerie factory by subtraction rather than addition: walls were punched out to create windows, the industrial shell was left raw. Look for the deliberate roughness — exposed concrete block, irregular openings, minimal insulation visible as surface. It is architecture as archaeological intervention.