Kirsten & Nather -Wohn- und Fabrikationsgebäude zweier West-Berliner Architekten

The architectural history of Berlin would be poorer without them: the architects Klaus Kirsten (1929–1999) and Heinz Nather (*1927) were responsible for a number of individual, unconventional residential buildings and outstanding manufacturing plants. Their rediscovery is ascribable to the Rotaprint complex in the Wedding district of Berlin with its two cubical concrete towers. Inspired by the fascinating architecture, the initiators of ExRotaprint and current operators of the plant began to collect material about the architects and discovered Heinz Nather and his archive by way of an announcement in the journal Bauwelt. The resulting book provides an overview of Kirsten & Nather’s body of architectural work and classes it with the modern postwar period in the Federal Republic of Germany. Special attention is given to their surprisingly open and complexly designed residential floor plants from the fifties and the sixties as well their manufacturing plants as early examples of corporate architecture.