World War II: The Latest Architecture and News

The 2024 European Prize for Urban Public Space has announced the overall winners for the 12th edition: For the General Category, the "Park at the Warsaw Uprising Mound" in Poland by studios topoScape and Archigrest received recognition its ability to honor the site's historical significance; while the Seafront Category prize was given to the "Beach Improvement and Redevelopment of the Harbour Edge" in Porto do Son, Spain, designed by CREUSeCARRASCO and RVR Arquitectos for its careful integration of natural and manmade elements. Selected from a list of 10 finalists, the projects were appreciated for their sensible response to local memory and an understanding of the interplay between various elements that interact with urban life.

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Dating from the1940s, the air raid shelter in Hamburg’s St. Pauli district has been reimagined as a „green mountain,” with expansive gardens covering the top of the wartime structure. Known as the Hochbunker, translated as ‘high bunker,’ the location has undergone a substantial restoration and refurbishment process introducing restaurants, event spaces, and a hotel, together with a rooftop urban park. The bunker has opened to the public on July 5, 2025, with the purpose of reconnecting the community with the iconic structure and its complex history.

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The design by heneghan peng architects, Dublin, with Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Berlin, was awarded 1st prize in the international competition for the replanning and expansion of the Old Tower of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The competition’s purpose was to redesign the original West Tower, which was partially destroyed during a bombing by the Allied Forces in 1943, and return it to the tourist circuit as a war memorial and exhibition space.

WXCA Architectural Design Studio has won the international competition for the reconstruction of the Saxon Palace, a heritage site located in the historical city center of Warsaw, Poland, that was significantly damaged during the Second World War. The competition, organized by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in cooperation with the Association of Polish Architects, aimed to create a concept for the restoration of the monument, which is set to be rebuilt in its external Neoclassicist form of 1939.

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World War II left a profound influence on the evolution of society, introducing significant changes in the fields of urban planning and architecture. During the 1930s, the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) promoted modernism on an international scale. After the war, this architectural movement became firmly established as the dominant one, driven by the imperative of reconstruction and technological advancements. Influential figures like Le Corbusier and Alvar Aalto spearheaded this movement.

In 1959, the same year as the final CIAM meeting, Japanese architects like Kenzō Tange, Kishō Kurokawa —the designer of the Nakagin Capsule Tower—, and Kiyonori Kikutake began to explore new approaches to urban design and architecture, known as the Metabolist movement. This exploration was particularly significant in the context of Tokyo's rapid repopulation after the war and the scarcity of resources for reconstruction. Innovative concepts such as Marine City, The City in the Air, and the 1960 plan for Tokyo emerged, which proposed the city as a constantly evolving organism and emphasized the relationship between humans and their built environment. These ideas shaped the concept of "megacities" and reflected Japan's creative response to its challenging postwar situation.

The exhibition “Warsaw 1945-1949: Rising from Rubble” took place this year at the Museum of Warsaw, exploring the postwar reconstruction and rebuilding process that took place after the war. After the Second World War, Warsaw’s entire urban fabric, architecture, and social and economic status had to be rebuilt from the ground up. Curated by Adam Przywara, the exhibition “offered a new perspective on the myth of the postwar reconstruction of the Polish capital city and one of the most interesting pages in its history.”

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In the aftermath of the Second World War, a drastic housing shortage spread across Europe, and Milan was no exception. Various plans and solutions were conceived to address this crisis, outlining satellite communities for the city to accommodate between 50,000 and 130,000 residents each. The first of these communities began construction in 1946, just one year after the war's end: the Gallaratese project.

In late 1967, as the plan allowed for the private development of Gallaratese 2, the esteemed Studio Ayde, led by partner Carlo Aymonino, was assigned the project. Aymonino invited Aldo Rossi to contribute his architectural skill to the complex, leading to the realization of their distinct visions for an ideal microcosmic community. Together, these two Italian architects began a journey to shape a groundbreaking and historically significant housing icon for Milan. Captured through the lens of Kane Hulse, the building and it’s significance is revisited through this photo series.

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MiniLook Berlin from Okapi on Vimeo.

When we get wrapped up in everyday life, it can be easy to take the place we live for granted. In the MiniLook Berlin video, Okapi Creative Studio takes a step back to show the beauty of daily life in the city of Berlin via a stop-motion, tilt-shift technique that makes the city appear as if in miniature. The video highlights everyday street scenes and picturesque shots of nature, while some famous buildings make appearances as well.

Danish firm Dorte Mandrup A/S has been announced as the winners of a competition to design the new Trilateral Wadden Sea World Heritage Partnership Center on a historic UNESCO naval site in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Selected from 14 entries, the firm’s winning proposal will seemingly float atop an existing World War II bunker and house the offices of a joint Danish, German and Netherlandish corporation working to protect the Wadden Sea area.

With the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the great World’s Fairs that had been held around the globe since the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 lost much of their momentum. With the specter of another global conflict looming like a stormcloud on the horizon in the latter half of the decade, prospects for the future only grew darker. It was in this air of uncertainty and fear that the gleaming white Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 New York World’s Fair made their debuts, the centerpiece of an exhibition that presented a vision of hope for things to come.

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This article was originally published on Business Insider as "Hitler's 3-mile-long abandoned Nazi resort is transforming into a luxury getaway."

Three years before Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Adolf Hitler ordered the construction of the world's largest tourist resort, located on a beachfront property on the island of Rügen. The Nazis called it Prora.

Capable of holding more than 20,000 residents at a single time, Prora was meant to comfort the weary German worker who toiled away in a factory without respite. According to historian and tour guide Roger Moorhouse, it was also meant to serve as the carrot to the stick of the Gestapo—a pacifying gesture to get the German people on Hitler's side.

But then World War II began, and Prora's construction stalled—until now.

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In 2000, in a trial held in London, the notorious British Holocaust denier David Irving sued an American historian and her publisher for libel. He posited that the Holocaust didn't really happen – "was the planned and systematic murder of six million European Jews an elaborate hoax?" The battle over the meaning of the architectural evidence took centre stage. Ultimately, forensic interpretation of the blueprints and architectural remains of Auschwitz became crucial in the defeat of Irving, in what remains to date the most decisive victory against Holocaust denial.

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May 8th marks the 70-year anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, when Germany’s Third Reich surrendered to the Allied forces. To commemorate the anniversary, Konstantin von zur Muehlen has released “Spirit of Berlin,” a short color film with historic footage showing everyday life in the German capital in July 1945 -- just two months after the end of the war.

Learn more after the break.