Designed by NSH Architekten, The story began in 2007 with an international two-stage competition for the Turkish Embassy in Berlin. A basic concept consisting of the building floor plans and two images was requested in the first phase. Based on these materials, the jury would select 15 proposals to be delivered in a more a detailed project. Around 150 offices, mostly German and Turkish, submitted their proposals, out of which 14 were selected for the second phase. The high response to the call was no surprise, as more than 2.5 million people with Turkish origin live in Germany. In Berlin alone, more than 100,000 have a Turkish passport. Furthermore, the discussion on the inclusion of Turkey in the European Union continues to this day.
Photography: Bernardette Grimmenstein We developed the proposal for the first phase with Volkmar Nickol in his living room for about two months. We had not met before this project and for me it was only a couple of years that I moved from Chile to Berlin and still struggled with the language. None of us had an own architecture office and for my part, it was the first competition I did in Germany. A minimum of office infrastructure was requested for the second stage of the competition, so we included Thomas Hillig as a strategic partner.
Photography: Bernardette Grimmenstein
As a result of the competition we received the third prize and after a few months we were called from the Embassy to consider the possibility of developing our proposal. In...