Modern East - by Zupagrafika

Architecture | Illustration | 2017

Build Your Own Modernist DDR

Omnipresent Plattenbau housing estates, monumental Hochhäuser, cosmic milk bars; post-war East Germany was rebuilt on concrete foundations to establish the new modernity and shape the unique and no less controversial urban landscape of the German Democratic Republic.

Modern East by Zupagrafika celebrates socialist modernist and brutalist architecture of the former East Germany and allows you to playfully reconstruct some of the most intriguing edifices erected between the early 1950s and late 1980s - from the massive Plattenbauten of Rostock, through the icons of DDR-Moderne, like Kino International or Haus des Berliner Verlages, to the demolished relict of East Germany`s heyday - Mokka-Milch-Eisbar ‘Kosmos’. All models feature detailed illustrations of the original facades before their renovation.

The kit includes: 9 illustrated paper models to cut out and assemble, an introduction to the history of architecture in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik by Florian Heilmeyer (writer on architecture and urbanism based in Berlin), a short piece of information on each building and easy to follow instructions.

Haus des Berliner Verlages. Berlin (Ost)
Kino International. Berlin (Ost)
Ernst-Thälmann-Park Housing Complex. Berlin (Ost)
Mokka-Milch-Eisbar ‘Kosmos’. Cottbus
Y-Hochhaus. Dessau
Hochhaus Pirnaischer Platz. Dresden
‘Scheiben’ Housing Complex. Halle (Neustadt)
City-Hochhaus. Leipzig
Terrassenhaus, Schmarl Housing Estate. Rostock‍‍

*Kino International posters: inspired by films produced in DDR, designed by Zupagrafika.