As a response to the East Berlin building project on Karl-Marx Allee—known lovingly as the grand workers’ palaces—West Berliners decided to rebuild a bombed-out section of the city. In the northwest corner of Tiergarten, West Berlin city planners held a competition for new residential buildings that would oppose that of the housing on Karl-Marx Allee (regarded by many as a continuation of the Nazi tastes).

Today this neighborhood, the Hansaviertel, consists of 36 buildings resulting from the 1953 competition. Fifty-three architects submitted designs for modern housing ranging from single story bungalows to 16-story buildings. Among those whose designs were realized are Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, Oscar Niemeyer and Arne Jacobsen.

Under landmark protection since 1995, the buildings of the Hansaviertel retain their inventive image and bright color that once provided an impressive contrast to the gray and rubble of post-war Berlin.