While not a German city anymore Kaliningrad (or Königsberg prior to WWII) is a perfect example of how cities went from beautiful to horrible looking after WWII
@PAXperMort it's way worse in West Germany bro, believe me. Frankfurt am Main ist Not liveable and all the cities directly around them too. East Germany is only a little better tho. Soviet and USA are both shit
similar to poland, both germany and poland architecture got ripped apart, its only show not ww2 but universal truth wars destroys valuable treasure, good luck germany from poland
@@dmk-dv3vq As a German, I interrailed through Poland this year and cannot say that about Danzig, Breslau, Krakau, Warsaw and Posen. They were indeed beautiful. We should start together an architectural revolution - back to beauty! Love from Germany
Big agree, I live there, in a town pretty far from the city, and it's absolutely beautiful. The video isn't false, but it applies strictly to big cities, and even those have the old town center which is extremely often absolutely stunning. Munich has both the beauty and the brutalism in its architecture, depending where you are.
5:30 I can't believe how great your 3D model of the miniature street. The lights looks really as they were miniatures ones, basically a led bulb at the end of a stick.
As a person living in germany I need to add something. When you go in a train station even at night you are all alone but you also have that familiar voice calling out train delays and cancelations that makes you even more suicidal
While some deregulation of the housing code might help to increase the number of new buildings, it wouldn't make them prettier. Private developers will always (with rare exceptions) only pay for the bare minimum. As long as there is a housing shortage in the cities, tenants will move into ugly houses. From a developers perspective that means that aesthetics are optional.
@@rainergazarini3570 We would not. What we now consider beautiful, the ornamentation and flourishes of pre-WW1 architecture, was deeply unpopular for many decades, considered decadent and wasteful. Even buildings that survived WW2 intact had their ornamentation deliberately removed to make them look more functional and rational. This was called "Entstuckung" or "removal of stucco" in Germany. This trend held on for much longer than the current trend of rediscovering (and clumsily replicating) older styles has, which I believe is not how we should react to the mistakes of the past. We need to find new styles, new ways of building our cities that are appropriate to our current times instead of merely trying to imitate an era that is long lost.
@@no1DdC agree, there are some uncomfortable ideas with the retvrn movement. We should aim to humanise and contextualise buildings, not just long for the return of a Kaiser.
@@no1DdC I do think those old cities centers look a lot nicer than my commie blocks (southern romania) but housing is already too expensive and forcing developers to create neoclassical buildings based on some city level design guidelines would only increase costs and bureaucracy, even if you do remove some of that older ornamentation to make them look less decadent. I honestly don't know what the solution to either of those problems is (somewhat ugly housing that's also unaffordable) but it's definetely not getting rid of regulation regarding fire safety and parking space size like this video seems to suggest lmao.
It might not be "objective", but there is a strong consensus when it comes to beauty. "The earth is round" objective. "Killing people is bad" subjective, yet for over 90% of the cases of someone being killed there will be consensus.
@@shracc I think a more accurate statement would be "Some factors influencing beauty are objective" An example for me would be depth. Beautiful things have some variety of depth. Doesn't matter if as a visual illusion (e.g. flat marble) or as actual depth. The first Bauhaus building is great at this. It's oviously not as decorated as the older stucco buildings. But, contrary to the ugly blocks you see sometimes in cities, with the roof, that reaches over the walls and the corner rooms protruding outwards a bit it still has a bit of depth. What's better between the two is subjective. But both are better than the flat-roofed, single-colour, windows almost flat to the facade Cubes, where the only depth you get is if somebody opens a window. The latter feels like a cheap, bad version of Bauhaus.
I’m Dutch, but have seen a lot of our eastern neighbors land, and I couldn’t agree with you more. There most definitely are some really, really beautiful parts of German cities, but, man, are there weirdly car-centric, gray and ugly parts. Finding the balance is really a key factor here. I think Berlin is doing a very fine job at improving said balance, it’s truly my favorite city in Germany, mainly because of that East-West combination of classic urban streets and modern concrete communist apartments. Anyways, nothing but love to your channel mate, keep it up 🔥
As an American who has recently relocated to Germany full time, I find this video incredibly timely! Me and my wife have spent the better half of this year looking for a flat which is the catalyst that made me wonder and discuss this very topic. It exists, and will vary by location, but it is actually quite challenging to find a place that is newer & modern, or, older but has some charm and character to it (never mind the fact that finding a place, in general, is quite difficult at the moment). Thank for this incredibly informative and well presented video!
As a German I can tell you that my home town of Augsburg was almost completely destroyed by allied areal bombing. There are regular bomb findings during construction to this day. Sometimes the bombs are so large that huge areas need to be evacuated for safe disposal. And yet cars have done far more damage over the decades. Only the city center remains mostly intact and is still pretty, but everything in the periphery is a car centric mess almost as bad as the US Modern architecture and car centric city planning is a plague.
@@garryferrington811 stop the missinformation please. I do live here, you know. Try this on Wikipedia and educate yourself: Bombing_of_Augsburg_in_World_War_II wiki/Messerschmitt_AG It really isn't that hard to come by the necessary sources. WW2 is well documented. Everybody is entitled to an opinion, but with that comes the ability to make a fool of yourself as well. So keep that in mind when jsut making stuff up.
@@Youbetternowatchthis I believe Garry was replying to the comment about Leopold Mozart, noting that his time there was before the war. (I was born there too.)
It’s fascinating to see how urban design has evolved, but there’s also an interesting counter-example from East Germany. Many historic buildings that were heavily damaged during WWII remained largely untouched during the GDR era, almost as if frozen in time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, these buildings were beautifully restored, and now city centers like Stralsund shine in their former glory. It’s a remarkable transformation that highlights the value of preserving and revitalizing historic architecture.
Very insightful and educational video, Fern! Describing them as 'ugly' and 'Angstraum' is spot-on! I lived in Apolda, near Weimar where the Bauhaus school started. In the northwestern part of town, there are these 'Bauhausen' buildings that have a dry, almost docile atmosphere. During the day, walking through these areas it makes you feel isolated from the world around you, as if the buildings are completely empty. At night, there's you can almost feel the eyes as they follow, which is unsettling. It was quite a gnarly experience overall. However, the contrast brought by the lively pubs, cozy cafes, and lush town center made the place truly feel like home.
To be fair German cities were also ugly before ww2 you can look at many images that show they were not at all ornamented like Fern shows but only a few houses here and there with others plain façades with no decoration. Other countries that got their cities destroyed by Germany WW1 then in WW2 unlike Germany rebuilt them as good as they could
@@Nobody_Cares913 look it up compared to the European standard they were ugly and i'm not talking about Vienna and Paris they didn't meet the standard of cities like Budapest
German cities are terribly designed??? Really? Have you ever been in other countries? I suggest you visit a balkan country and I personally will be happy to show you myself what a terribly designed city really looks like starting with my hometown
How does your argument make this video's point any less valid? Lots of German cities are terribly designed, your city being even worse doesn't change that fact German cities could be so much better.
8:58 - "in other countries" - literally showing a frame of the German City Rostock with the tram - just a 3 minutes walk from my apartment :D Great video, as always!
It's RostoCk but you're completely right. It indeed shows the "Neuer Markt" area with the town hall. Wouldn't have expected to see my hometown in this video and honestly would not have noticed it without your comment :D
As an american living in Germany I wouldnt compare the cities of Germany to the cities in the US when it comes to a city built around cars. Compared to NYC, Philly, and Denver ( the only 3 major cities ive spent a lot of time in) Berlin, Munich, and Suttgart are way easier to navigate by foot and public transportation then the US cities. The roads in major German cities besides the main roads are barely big enough to fit a sedan into, there are little to no parking lots even if your willing to pay, and because of the super tiny roads the traffic is insane. Honestly for most my destinations even google with tell me it is faster by train or bus then by car (including walking time) but as for the architecture, yeah its pretty much giant grey boxes and has no identity at all
Yeah the car thing is honestly not that big of an impact compared to other factors. Just seems like OP wanted to lean on that for some reason. This was a neat video but way oversimplified and just completely glossed over major contributing factors for some reason.
I honestly think it's weird how so many people rely on cars here in my hometown. Yesterday, there was like a kilometer long line of cars and with the bike you can be anywhere in the city quicker by bike than standing in this long line. Just strange and the cars really need to be reduced in favor of cleaner faster and less obstructive transprotation. Here in Germany, places are also not as large as the US for example, making it much easier to travel to any part of the city just by bike. Else, you can just hitch a train or a bus for longer distances
@@xzy_sampletext_yzx3411 Germany in my experience just isnt made for cars. 2 lane roads with barely enough room for even 1 car, traffic on every highway, 0 parking in the city, and gas isnt cheap. Germany has done a great job with public transportation and easily one the best countries to own a bike in. Yet the amount of cars is insane compared to amount of space dedicated to cars
This September i drove through Germany while visiting a friend in Luxembourg I dined in two German cities along the way, There is this strange dystopian feeling in almost all German cities. Like there is an experiment of having a people that has lost its culture and lost its vitality in the ruins of a once great civilization. This is shown in both architecture, design, clothing, peoples behavior and various visual arts. I believe the trauma of WWII and the trauma of the holocaust compounds with the factors that has made it bad in the rest of the world and are making things even worse in Germany than in other western nations. I think this also expresses itself in the fact that there are always a few young ethnic German drug addicts on the streets of every major German city, something which really drives the point of the nihilism and loss of vitality through! Almost a low key human sacrifice of the youth and potential at the alter of hedonism and self loathing.
Which cities? " I think this also expresses itself in the fact that there are always a few young ethnic German drug addicts on the streets of every major German city," Like everywhere lese really.
"There is this strange dystopian feeling in almost all German cities." No, there is not. That is such a generalizing BS, to be honest. So you have been to two German cities and you're making a judgement on "almost all German cities"? Nothing about my life here in Germany feels dystopian.
@@FranzKaernBiederstedt I went to Berlin with my gymnasium friends at least annually for some years I live in Denmark and we often travel south of the border to escape the high sales tax, so I am exposed plenty to Flensburg and Hamburg. Germany is more deracinated than the rest of Europe and you feel it when you move between Germany and other nations.
There is nothing more sadistic than constructing an ugly building that generations of people have to live their lives in and that generations of people in the area have to look at. It's like taking a crap in someone's garden, leaving and then the owner of the garden has to live with the smell.
Good video. However one nit-pick: I think it looks weird that at 9:31 (and later on in the vid) the bike-symbols on the ground are backwards. They should be facing the bikers who are riding on the left side.
@@PatNeedhamUSA no they were not. This is obviously 3D Animation with a lot of focal blur. The designer just made a mistake which is likely considering the amount of CGI shots in this video
You are finally addressing the lack of aesthetics in german cities that so many people see. Unfortunately, many Germans are even blind to it because they grew up in the country. But friends and relatives from other countries always tell me in private that they are slightly shocked by the urban landscape. Sometimes even Eastern Europeans ask me whether Germany has become more of a second or third world country. Unfortunately, aesthetics and beauty are currently being politically charged and interpreted as right-wing ideas, for example. Which is of course nonsense if you simply want a better quality of life and some soul in the architecture. If it's not Art Nouveau, then at least Art Deco or something similar. 😭🙏 Fortunately, there are also associations like “Stadtbild Deutschland e.V.” that are also committed to this.
"If it's not Art Nouveau, then at least Art Deco or something similar" Yall have such bad taste, there nothing wrong with minimalism, we just need to get rid of private cars!
@@aturchomicz821 It is amusing to imply a lack of taste while at the same time propagating empty minimalism, which has no taste. 😂 We just need to get rid of Hipster socialists who do not value hard work and passion.
the miljonprrgrammet in sweden was also a massive project in the 60s that was to build 1 million homes used a lot of "bauhaus" type buildings, but are now the slums/poor areas for most cities. But it did give us a lot more infrastructure. There was supposed be built more but money dissapeared in the 70s
honestly the idea of them as slums is massively exaggerated, i've lived in miljonprogrammet areas for basically my entire life and never even gave it a second thought. If anything they're generally some of the nicer places to live since the rent isn't terrifying and they're generally very car-light and have good public transport connections. Every now and then i hear a car going through the area and i'm reminded of just how quiet things are otherwise, and how miserable it must be to live in a place where you have constant traffic outside your windows.. The worst part about miljonprogrammet areas is just that they're generally extremely boring, you have some playgrounds and some grills and everything else is just mowed lawn. But this is thankfully starting to improve now that meadows are becoming popular and people start pushing for places to grow some veggies and flowers for themselves.
I would just want to add that this mostly applies to the cities which were devastated by WW2. If you go to say southern Germany there are quite a few medieval cities to visit: Freiburg (in parts), Tübingen, Rottweil, Konstanz, Meersburg and many many of the small medieval looking villages, that were never touched by WW2. You also often will find places that tried to at least reconstruct parts of their downtown as it looked before WW2, if you however then go into the industrial or more modern parts of these towns, you'll find these Bauhaus style buildings aplenty. Just to reiterate: the Bauhaus style dominates cities, which were destroyed by WW2. Places, mostly in southern Germany, which were not touched by the war still have their medieval or Imperial look about them. I can recommend Konstanz in particular, as that place blends both styles together.
If new residential projects are only investment opportunities there is no incentive to waste money on making things look good since you will find residents regardless because of the housing situation.
That's where local governments step in. They can mandate public space requirements, colors of roofs or walls, greenery, road level crossings, bike lanes, bike parking, etc etc etc.
But if you intend to build in or create an upper class neighborhood with high prices, you would eventually need to at least fit the existing aesthetic or create good-looking buildings in order to maximize the closing price.
@ it’s a bit more complex than that. For example, if zoning ordinances restrict multifamily homes (apartments), the property values increase without the need for things being “good looking”.Zoning can artificially reduce supply and increase demand, which can look great for a community on paper…when oversimplified. Shanghai is an extreme, but clear example of this.
Areas in middle germany like Erfurt, Halle and Leipzig still do look like the portrayed stereoptype of old architecture. There are huge quarters in heavily bombed cities like Berlin or Hamburg that look fine as hell.
I wouldn't say they are any more ugly than any other European city with modern architecture, in fact I would say that their modernism is comparatively pretty sleek and good quality when compared with places like the UK which are totally ugly and also disorganized. Even Amsterdam, if you get out of the old city center and go into a lot of the residential areas, can be pretty ugly, even uglier than anything I have seen in Germany. Of course I would prefer ornate stone masonry facades, but this is a far broader problem, Germany certainly isn't even close to the worst in this regard.
Oh how I wish this was only true for Germany. My country, Poland, hasn't built a single beautiful building in what feels like decades now. Virtually all of our urban planners - if you could even call them that - are stuck in the previous century and still ravage the urban tissue with new, multi lane roads and shopping malls surrounded by swathes of car parking. It feels like we've finally fully embraced America's car culture from the 50s. Ugly, generic apartment blocks are popping up everywhere with no limits. It's quite sad.
@@Dara-wk5ty if you think that car centric planning happens only in the east, then come to Wrocław (urząd wojewódzki, plac Grunwaldzki... just to name a few).
I live and grew up in Amsterdam and i can not imagine how it would be growing up in those big, very car dependent cities. Glad to live in a pedestrian/bike friendly city as Amsterdam, unlike many sadly.
If you knew nothing else you’d wonder how anyone could grow up in Amsterdam. Critical thinking has left the chat. Christ man, look outside your self absorbed bubble once in a while and put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
I grew up in a mix of both worlds in a city with 50k residents and I couldn’t imagine living in Münster which is one of the most bike friendly cities in the country, i freaking hate that city, there is no structure, the bicyclists drive around like idiots and you feel like the city tries everything to not make you drive a car instead of making it perfect for everyone, that’s why cities like Bielefeld are perfect, great public infrastructure, great roads for cars and enough space for both pedestrians and bikes to walk/drive around, not everyone has the ability to walk or ride a bike and for public transportation depending on where you want to get will take a lot longer than just drive there by yourself since you can’t place a train station everywhere and make trains or busses drive everywhere every 10 minutes
I spent a month in Hannover this summer, for no particular reason or with little research. I wasn't in the old town but any time I would walk around the neighborhood I would really appreciate the old architecture, so surprised to hear they are known for having left the past behind. Everything is relative though, and coming from North America, Hannover really stood out to me for it's beaty and really good bike lanes.
@@juanDE1703 There are still plenty of smaller cities in the Ruhrpott that are quite picturesque. The region is so dense that you don't really have to travel far to get to a beautiful place.
Germany's cities had to be built quickly following the end of WWII. They've improved a lot since then, with entire palaces, historical quarters, and churches being rebuilt from the ground up. Some are still feeling the effects of WWII and communism, like Berlin, but others, like Munich, are extremely beautiful thanks to the painstaking restoration work that's taken place there.
rebuilding and restoration is not done quickly enough. It has been 80 years and have been one of the strogest economies in the world for the last 50 years.
@@minnihd6470 East Germany brought down the West's economy substantially before it recovered. They had to dedicate billions of dollars to bringing the East up to speed with the West, let alone make it as beautiful as the West. Not to mention all the people who push back against these developments because they're worried about their tax dollars. It'll take time, but Germany will be as beautiful as it was in the 1800s once more.
true that,but it wasnt only done because ''housing had to be built quickly'' the DDR also dynamited tons of undamaged standing churches,cathedrals et cetera because ''gothic churchis does not fit in the socialist vision of the DDR'' as said by one of their leaders. it was definitely political too.
@@jayzandstra1830 also very true, but the DDR did only take up 1/3rd of the country. There are a LOT of cities in West Germany, that look ugly as fuck and have no reason they are
you guys are pumping out so much high quality content, its crazy. I love this channel, but please don't burn yourselves out. It needs to be fun for you, most of all :)
No, I see it differently. If you were to ask citizens whether they would prefer a cozy old town or a district with modern buildings made of glass, steel and concrete, a majority of 90% would choose the former. That's why I don't see that as the spirit of society. I would rather say it is the spirit of the city planners and architects, but not of the citizens.
@@callsigndd9ls897 You are leaving something important out: The people after WW2 had the choice between having a roof over the head or no roof over the head. They chose the former, which necessitated no-nonsense buildings. I don't think you quite realize just how desperate the housing situation was after WW2. The spirit of society was "I don't want to be homeless".
@@no1DdC I was built in 1948 myself and know the housing shortage from my childhood. Our apartment building (a corner house) lost the fourth floor and the corner in 1943 in bombing raids. All 15 tenants in the building had to move closer together and share the remaining apartments until it was rebuilt in 1955. So you don't have to tell me what the situation was like back then, because I experienced it myself. What I meant is not the apartment buildings from the 1950s that were supposed to alleviate this housing shortage, but the glass, steel and concrete shopping monstrosities that were built in the middle of our old town in the 1970s, and that existing, perfectly repairable old buildings were demolished to make them. The old town in my city has lost all its charm since then. In the 1970s, there was already enough money to make it better. Other old towns come alive in the evenings when people go to the street restaurants and enjoy the beautiful old buildings. In my town it's dead after the shops close; absolutely no one feels comfortable unless they absolutely have to buy something in these ugly glass, steel and concrete shopping monstrosities.
@@callsigndd9ls897 Fair enough. You're completely right about all of this. Somewhat paradoxically, in Germany at least, people are now thinking that this is how city centers are supposed to look like and want to preserve it against the onslaught of online shopping. It's bizarre.
In my opinion Berlin is a very beautiful and well designed city. The urban planning is really good, there are wide sidewalks everywhere with a great amount of pedestrian roads that act as small plazas, there are many green spaces, mass transportation is really efficient, roads are wide and well maintained reducing the traffic. An other great thing about Berlins urban planning is that everything has the right dimensions from the sidewalks to the space for green and trees between the road and to the road itself that has sufficient dimensions for lanes and parking spaces. Also minimal buildings are not as dystopian as you claim, for me minimalism gives a clean and calm vibe compared to the typical north European Renaissance architecture or Baroque, which can be really overwhelming sometimes. As long as the building is well designed in harmony with the environment and properly maintained it can be beautiful even if it’s just a simple square with windows. Also we don’t have to look all things with negativity, glass buildings can also “store” heat in cold days reducing the consumption of electricity for heating ( also in my opinion the look cool and futuristic). Anyways the video was really nice 👌🏼
If you're going to claim that those regulations stifle creativity I think you need some better examples. The examples of the regulations you gave are essential, most of them are likely written in blood. Other than that, great video as always.
I think it's fair not to mess with anything over fire or structural safety, don't clad your tower with flammable insulation for example. But I get the feeling a lot of these are ergonomic and design norms that haven't been updated in decades and are based more on vibes than science.
I moved to Germany a couple of years ago, and this is pretty spot on. So many cities or large areas within cities look like depressing, car-centric hellholes, devoid of color and humanity. Of course it doesn't look like that everywhere, but it can get quite bleak many places. 100% agree with your conclusion. Also, I feel like the ugliness and "sameness" of many German inner-city areas has become something of a meme here.
Yes, people are trying to build more beautiful buildings today, but unfortunately what was built in the 1950s to the 1980s is still standing and it really wasn't beautiful.
Exaggerated video with some truth to it. Car-centric city planning is one of the major reasons why cities often are neither pedestrian nor cyclist-friendly. But the cities aren’t as dystopian as described here. And it mentions Hanover. Today Hanover is an example for very good traffic and city planning. No surprise - has a green mayor…
lol netflix CHOOSES how their products look, for better or for worse. if they wanted to they could blow this youtuber out of the water. Its all about penny pinching since they know they have ~10 years tops with their current slop.
well looking at a previous fern video, i think this guy has like 4-6 German animators chained in his place in Amsterdam cranking out animations for food
russian blocks are just something else. i watched vid about new developments in russia, those falling apart ugly high crime dirt roads, acres of 20 stories piles of concrete, in my opinion idea of high story cheaply made housing isnt as bad as it is potrait but execution of that in russia is just horrible. we have commie blocks u have commie blocks, we are not the same lmao
The situation with cars in Cologne is really interesting. Cologne overall has a great public transport with its expansive Stadtbahn (a sort of underground/tram hybrid) network, which comes every 10 minutes on most lines, and the city is already quite walkable, so in theory it shouldn't really be very car-dependent. But there are a few problems. Firstly, the Stadtbahn network hasn't really seen any major expansion into the suburbs this century. For example, if you live in Hürth-Stotzheim - which is only 7 km from Cologne city centre! - the fastest car-free option (if you don't have a bicycle) to access the nearest Stadtbahn stop (Efferen on number 18) is to walk 35-45 minutes. If you can't (or don't want to) walk and you use buses, you're looking at taking an hourly bus for a 4 minute ride, waiting 30 minutes for the connecting hourly bus, taking that for 4 minutes, waiting 7 minutes for the connecting thrice-hourly bus, and taking that for 10 minutes - for a total travel time of 45 minutes (so, basically just as long or even longer than walking), assuming none of your buses are delayed/cancelled. Then you wait 8 minutes for the Stadtbahn and get to the city centre in another 17 minutes. Depart Stotzheim at 8.27, arrive in the city centre at 9.37 - 1h10m travel time. Of course, instead of going to the Stadtbahn at Efferen, you could take the bus in the opposite direction all the way to Frechen to take the number 7 Stadtbahn - depart Stotzheim at 7.57 or 8.57 (so either half an hour earlier or later), arrive in the city centre at 8.58 or 9.58 - saving you two changes and 9 minutes travel time. Or you could do what we did in the first journey but stay on the second bus, which itself goes to the city centre, again departing Stotzheim at 8.27 and arriving in the city centre at 9.31, saving you one change and 6 minutes travel time. But whichever of these you choose, the initial bus service (or two) is still hourly, so if you miss it you're screwed. This is all because number 9 terminates at Hermeskeiler Platz; if it were expanded down to Stotzheim (the only logical place for it to go, because Frechen to the north is served by the 7, and Efferen to the south by the 18), you could be in the city centre within 20 minutes, so it would cut your travel time by two thirds. But in the absence of that, the journey by car is only 27 minutes, so obviously most people will opt for the car. The second problem is the lack of park and ride facilities. If Efferen Stadtbahn had a big free car parking facility, people from Stotzheim would drive the 10 minutes there and take the 17 minute Stadtbahn ride (resulting in basically the same travel time) to avoid dealing with the stress of city traffic and paying for expensive city centre car parks. But because finding a space at Efferen is already hard enough (with no one using it to park & ride), people *continue* to not use it as a park & ride and instead take their cars into the city. This problem is even more pronounced with suburban towns & villages that are further out than Hürth-Stotzheim. In Kerpen, 20 km from the city centre, for the least-change route (bus to Frechen then Stadtbahn to the city centre), you will sit on the circuitous bus for nearly an hour before getting to the Stadtbahn, with your total travel time to the city centre being nearly 1h40m. You can take routes with more changes to shave nearly half an hour off that journey, but the thing is, you're again relying on an hourly bus and driving to Frechen would save you a full *40* minutes (total travel time 50 minutes, compared to driving into the centre from Kerpen 40 minutes) - but again, no P+R facility at Frechen. Cologne proper (which is all nicely connected by the Stadtbahn) has a population of just over 1 million, but if you add the metro area/suburbs it adds up to almost 2 million, so basically a significant proportion of people who want to go to Cologne city centre have no convenient way of getting there other than by car. This really needs to be addressed for increased pedestrianisation to not result in a traffic nightmare!
A very good example of the duality of how to rebuild after the war is Warsaw. Where some parts of the historic center were rebuilt as best to the abilities back in the day, but then you'd just go across a street and you are in an area filled with the typical blocky houses that were so common all over the Eastern Block.
I am German and frequently cross to the Netherlands. When you cross the border to Germany where it goes through towns, you can see how everything turns a little grey, starting with the color of the sidewalk, to the disappearing bike lane, the color of roofs, and the facades. Even in little border towns. When you cross on the highway, you feel the quality of the pavement decrease and even the highway kind of feels grey compared to the Netherlands.
No, you're wrong. You blame excessive, complex bureaucracy as the reason why it's so difficult to improve spaces, but all those "fire safety" "noise protection" "energy efficiency" and a "laundry list of other codes" Those are good things. We _should_ have standards which infrastructure and housing must meet. The problem was and always has been _GREED_ You built tall towers and took away green spaces because of _GREED_ to fit in more people in a smaller space, and the people that occupy these types of houses are from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Because _GREED_ not because Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Are you suggesting fire safety, noise protection, energy efficiency and the "laundry list of other codes" are there for no reason? You're absurd. Greed is the problem. Not safety and the bureaucracy that enforces it.
@@sudbenzer6603 i think that goes too far. all i want is some representation of the east and the fact that eastern cities are indeed very beautiful because they care more about restauration
Yes, German cities have been destroyed during WW II, yes, there have been some ugly, excluding and uninviting tendencies in modern architecture, but I would definitely refrain from a generalistic judgement that German cities are overall ugly --- and that that would be a specific German phenomenon. You just have to go to neighboring Switzerland to see how they modernized some of the most beautiful old cities and towns in a very unsensitive manner without any need. There were no bombs dropped on Swiss places during WW II, they just decided to incorporate modernist architectural concepts into their city plannings... As did a lot of countries around the world. There are a lot of videos here on RUclips that show the glorious past of US-American cities which were torn down in order to build parking lots and inner city highways. I just saw a video about how Atlantic City went down a path from America's luxurious East Cost Spa to more or less a sad ghost town. I won't deny that in every German city there are parts that don't look very nice and neat and cozy, but even some of the modernist parts near to the center of many German cities nowadays don't look that bad but rather really nice with trees and beautifully furnished public spaces building an interesting and aesthetic contrast to facades of glass. Modernist buildings are not per se ugly in every case. Some of them can really be beautiful. And not to forget that in many German cities there are still considerable numbers of historic buildings that survived WW II and provide with a connection to Germany's past. Look at Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Münster, Erfurt, Augsburg, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, Mainz, Rostock, Stralsund, Bremen... They don't look exact the same way they looked like before WW II, but it's simply not true to call them ugly now in total. They all show a mixture of different styles and architectural philosophies, they show their history with wounds and healings. You find a lot of very pleasant places to hang out and feel cozy and welcome there. Some of these places are historic, but some also are modern and nevertheless beautiful and embracing.
The Bauhaus movement also played a role in East Germany when it was under Communist leadership. It’s why if you travel to the former East Germany you will see a lot of Angstraum architecture.
I lived in Germany for few years... it is a place where pragmatism overthrown beauty. Historical building cladded with pink insulation panels... enormous glass panels along rivers... just in case a dog fall into it... i was shocked ...
Personally, I would prefer longer videos (mabye 30-40 minutes. And have them drop monthly instead. I think 11 minutes just leaves you wanting more because the content is so good!
I work in a NYC architectural firm Most of the blame is energy code. It forces buildings to be squares with insulation all around it's very difficult to create interesting buildings. Zoning is also a big issue as it forces buildings to basically match all the other buildings and create large square structures
Also love the newly built single family houses: They are all copy-pasted and leave only ~5m between each other, so you could almost shake hands with your neighbor through the windows. Something like a garden is limited to 5m infront and behind the house (behind which other hoses are biult), and the 2,5m of your land to each side. It's kinda depressing, and there is no motivation to buy a newly built house, at least for me, as someone buys them all even before they are finished...
Car centric planning needs to go. Those videos about a hundred Japanese pedestrians having to stop and wait because of 5 cars really changed my perspective.
as an american who’s been to germany, i disagree; i haven’t been to any big cities except for freiburg. when i went, i stayed in a small town in southwestern most part (kandern), and it seemed very vintage (for lack of better words). even freiburg seemed less industrialized than an american city, but maybe that’s just me 🤷♂️
You managed to choose one of the nicest cities in all of Germany. Visit Hannover, Wolfsburg, Duisburg, Dortmund, whatever and you'll see what this video is talking about.
@@fern-tv i want to go back to germany just so i can see some of the bigger cities; i went originally for a church mission trip so we couldn’t choose where to go
Brutalist architecture is the biggest crime. But it was cheap, which is why it was built so much after WW2. Much of more modern architecture is trying to get away from the worst of the drawbacks of brutalism and make more livable spaces again.
1000% agree, someone has to study and find out in what proportions it contributes to the bad mental health epidemic going on in the west. As someone who lived in one of those communist cities and got actual depression solely due to the disgustingly ugly architecture I would say, TREMENDOUSELY.
It's so fascinating how the people of that time reacted to those changes. My grandad was from berlin and he always told me, how smart those city planners were, that they made so broad roads in berlin for the cars and everything. He always was really happy about it. I mean, he has not lived in Berlin for over 40 years at that point ... still i had to think of him while watching this video
those videos are litteraly of deutches-quälitat (i think... in german idk i am still learning) with dutch flavor on top your german channel is pretty great too for learning 🗣🔥
"The legend of the "German quality" has faded last decades. BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Volkswagen...has fallen in quality compared to the 70s 80s. Only their prices went up.
@@gaborbakos7058 what your talking about the cars are still miles above american and asian cars lol xD also you realise german quality was created as a label to war people to not buy german producs right ? ... you know that right ?
@ravenn8984 Some tips: 1. It is "Die Qualität" (Nouns start with a capital letter) 2. "Viel" does not belong in that sentence... It means quantity like 10 Apples 3. "Wie" belongs only in questions or if you compare it to something else but then you need to put it after "gut"
Because his video is more informative than partisan. You can make informative videos on why less regulation causes national complications and also hold the viewpoint that more regulation could cause undesirable urbanization and homogenization on a local scale.
definitely valid points, but on the topic of regulation/bureaucracy and construction codes, as a civil engineer, codes are fundamental to ensuring that designers/builders/owners do the right thing and dont build shoddy/dangerous buildings to cut costs.
The problem in Germany is that every state has its own codes so when wanting to construct houses in different cities, companies have to change their building plans and stuff for every city. I wholly support building codes and am glad that we have them, but there are just to many (the figure in the video is outdated too haha)
I disagree with you on Bauhaus being practical. It’s mostly cost effective and now more than ever, it’s about the requirements and desires of those building apartments and not the people who end up living their lives in them, or having to see them… Room layouts are often very bad so that dirt from the entrance gets dragged through the entire apartment, kitchen and dining area couldn’t be further apart and you drag your dripping garbage back through a long corridor making a huge mess and this corridor takes up way too much space and is in many ways also a security risk… Space for furniture and the location of switches and power outlets is typically just an afterthought… You often end up in a situation where corridors get too narrow once you add furniture for storing shoes and jackets, or you open your wardrobe and the door bangs against your bed, which is no larger than you… You can laugh all you want about Feng Shui, for its esotericism, but what they call harmony, I call taking human nature into account. For instance, we prefer places where we can see the environment but don’t feel watched ourselves. Having a desk placed with your back to a door and people constantly running past you is terribly distracting… Also, size and proportions do matter to us. For instance, a 6ft man will feel a bit anxious in a room with a 6ft 2 inches ceiling and I wouldn’t be able to stand upright at all… On the other hand, who would want to sleep in a room with 20ft ceilings and a room size large enough to play entire soccer matches? If you end up setting up camp in a storage facility, chances are you instinctively create a subspace, where you feel more comfortable in… Another thing ancient builders considered, but most modern builders don’t seem to care about are the suns movement over time and the prevailing wind direction. The prior is important if you want to make the most use of natural light and don’t want to stare into a reflecting monitor and the latter is important for ventilation! So many modern bathrooms rely on an electric ventilator which usually doesn’t have the power to get the moisture out and you end up with mould everywhere… Many modern buildings are intolerable without AC and guess what: many European countries don’t have AC, unless you’re living REALLY fancy, even if your place can reach 40°C… We could probably have a similar discussion about Urban planning in general, but that's beyond my level of experience...I just think that many places are inefficient in design when it comes to public and private transport.
Look for them in southern Germany: places like Freiburg (in parts), Konstanz, Meersburg, Rottweil, Tübingen, Salem or Schwäbisch Hall were never destroyed in WW2. They are still what a lot of people think about.
@@mariuslorson751 ehm, and what makes you think the North was completely destroyed? Flensburg, Lübeck, Vechta, Oldenburg etc While you have Ludwigshafen Stuttgart, partly Mannheim etc. es PRIME examples of what was lost in WW2.
@@adrianseanheidmann4559 While the northern parts were not fully destroyed the destruction, especially in north-eastern Germany was far more widespread due to the axis of advance, which the allies took. In the Northwest you have the American-British axis of advance through Belgium and in the east the meatgrinder that was the rearguard action to slow down the Red army. The more southern regions were taken without much fighting and mostly suffered destruction due to bombing raids (see say Stuttgart or Friedrichshafen for that). So my point is: yes there are isolated pockets of medieval structures and town centers (sometimes restored post WW2, such as many a castle) in northern Germany, the concentration is far higher in Southern Germany, because the place wasn't destroyed as much during WW2.
In Urban Planning, this discussion is for course very relevant and sometimes heated. We need to build and we need to build fast and a lot. That in itself isn't sustainable economicly or enviromentaly, because building of course is bad for the enviroment and expensive. So the only way, to make a planning area, a city, a building sustainable is to make it last. And the only way to make it last more than a hundred years is to make it beautiful, comfortable, flexible and in it's role significant enough, for people to like it and finding it worth keeping, even in over a hundred years. Doing that is one of our challenges for the future. And of course it's expensive. But building in a way that only looks ahead 30 years is even more expensive in the long run.
While not a German city anymore Kaliningrad (or Königsberg prior to WWII) is a perfect example of how cities went from beautiful to horrible looking after WWII
That's just the Soviet effect
even the ugliest cities in Germany are nothing compared to what the russians did to Königsberg
@@colinviola7892 why is it Russians just ruin everything they touch
The Soviets made especially ugly buildings
@PAXperMort it's way worse in West Germany bro, believe me. Frankfurt am Main ist Not liveable and all the cities directly around them too. East Germany is only a little better tho. Soviet and USA are both shit
German cities might be ugly, but your graphics are beautiful fern
similar to poland, both germany and poland architecture got ripped apart, its only show not ww2 but universal truth wars destroys valuable treasure, good luck germany from poland
Fern rizz
@@dmk-dv3vq As a German, I interrailed through Poland this year and cannot say that about Danzig, Breslau, Krakau, Warsaw and Posen. They were indeed beautiful. We should start together an architectural revolution - back to beauty! Love from Germany
Yes, it makes sense to me
German cities are ugly because you bombed the shit out of us.
Aber waren sie schon mal in Baden-Württemberg?
i agree
Big agree, I live there, in a town pretty far from the city, and it's absolutely beautiful. The video isn't false, but it applies strictly to big cities, and even those have the old town center which is extremely often absolutely stunning. Munich has both the beauty and the brutalism in its architecture, depending where you are.
Nett hier
einzige Stadt zum auslachen hier ist Pforzheim.
Scheiße hier
5:30 I can't believe how great your 3D model of the miniature street. The lights looks really as they were miniatures ones, basically a led bulb at the end of a stick.
As a person living in germany I need to add something. When you go in a train station even at night you are all alone but you also have that familiar voice calling out train delays and cancelations that makes you even more suicidal
information zu s1 nach solingen hbf uber hilden abfahrt 7.25 fallt heute aus wir bitten um entschuldigng
www.youtube.com/@heikovoice
Every time, just knowing that one of these days that voice on the loudspeaker might ask if you want to play a game
And yet they're still one of the better trainsystems compared to many other countries
Stop self censoring in the comments! You don't need to be monetized here. You can write the word "suicidal"!
Honestly, as far as I know, German cities aren't as ugly as they show it
That's what I was thinking.
I've been to Berlin. It's definitely as ugly as they show it.
depends where u are. In the north u finde most of the ugly cities
@@someonesilence3731 yeah mostly but not everything. Also Berlin is a very bad example, for example Munich or Hamburg are much prettier.
Slava SAUERKRAUT 🥓🥙
While some deregulation of the housing code might help to increase the number of new buildings, it wouldn't make them prettier. Private developers will always (with rare exceptions) only pay for the bare minimum. As long as there is a housing shortage in the cities, tenants will move into ugly houses. From a developers perspective that means that aesthetics are optional.
100% this reason. Or, if it was just WW2 issues and regulations, we would have wonderful buildings all around Europe and US…
@@rainergazarini3570 We would not. What we now consider beautiful, the ornamentation and flourishes of pre-WW1 architecture, was deeply unpopular for many decades, considered decadent and wasteful. Even buildings that survived WW2 intact had their ornamentation deliberately removed to make them look more functional and rational. This was called "Entstuckung" or "removal of stucco" in Germany. This trend held on for much longer than the current trend of rediscovering (and clumsily replicating) older styles has, which I believe is not how we should react to the mistakes of the past. We need to find new styles, new ways of building our cities that are appropriate to our current times instead of merely trying to imitate an era that is long lost.
@@no1DdC agree, there are some uncomfortable ideas with the retvrn movement. We should aim to humanise and contextualise buildings, not just long for the return of a Kaiser.
@@no1DdC I do think those old cities centers look a lot nicer than my commie blocks (southern romania) but housing is already too expensive and forcing developers to create neoclassical buildings based on some city level design guidelines would only increase costs and bureaucracy, even if you do remove some of that older ornamentation to make them look less decadent. I honestly don't know what the solution to either of those problems is (somewhat ugly housing that's also unaffordable) but it's definetely not getting rid of regulation regarding fire safety and parking space size like this video seems to suggest lmao.
Beauty is objective, no matter what people tell you. Depressing housing leads to depressed people.
Found the German 🙄
@@rjp2755 There are studies on what Hans stated. What does this have to do with his supposed nationality?
It might not be "objective", but there is a strong consensus when it comes to beauty.
"The earth is round" objective.
"Killing people is bad" subjective, yet for over 90% of the cases of someone being killed there will be consensus.
100% accurate!!!!
@@shracc I think a more accurate statement would be "Some factors influencing beauty are objective"
An example for me would be depth. Beautiful things have some variety of depth. Doesn't matter if as a visual illusion (e.g. flat marble) or as actual depth.
The first Bauhaus building is great at this. It's oviously not as decorated as the older stucco buildings. But, contrary to the ugly blocks you see sometimes in cities, with the roof, that reaches over the walls and the corner rooms protruding outwards a bit it still has a bit of depth. What's better between the two is subjective. But both are better than the flat-roofed, single-colour, windows almost flat to the facade Cubes, where the only depth you get is if somebody opens a window. The latter feels like a cheap, bad version of Bauhaus.
I’m Dutch, but have seen a lot of our eastern neighbors land, and I couldn’t agree with you more. There most definitely are some really, really beautiful parts of German cities, but, man, are there weirdly car-centric, gray and ugly parts. Finding the balance is really a key factor here. I think Berlin is doing a very fine job at improving said balance, it’s truly my favorite city in Germany, mainly because of that East-West combination of classic urban streets and modern concrete communist apartments.
Anyways, nothing but love to your channel mate, keep it up 🔥
As an American who has recently relocated to Germany full time, I find this video incredibly timely! Me and my wife have spent the better half of this year looking for a flat which is the catalyst that made me wonder and discuss this very topic. It exists, and will vary by location, but it is actually quite challenging to find a place that is newer & modern, or, older but has some charm and character to it (never mind the fact that finding a place, in general, is quite difficult at the moment).
Thank for this incredibly informative and well presented video!
Feeling like i got premium when fern makes a video
Cool
3rd time i saw this comment in a fern video
why am i on all the comments
Slava HEINEKEN 🍻
premium auf gomme
At 10:03 you mention 3,700 construction codes, actually we have reached 20,000 construction codes (Bauvorschriften) in 2024.
Das ist korrekt
Oh well
20,000 (in English)
@@JesusFriedChrist Fixed it
20.000...... muss man sich mal vorstellen...
Kinda shoked that you didn't explain WW2 to increase watch time like other RUclipsrs
i was ready to hit the skip 10 secs button so hard.
Other RUclipsrs would have explained the history of housing going back to the cave days.
it's German, they are known for their efficiency. /s
As a German I can tell you that my home town of Augsburg was almost completely destroyed by allied areal bombing.
There are regular bomb findings during construction to this day. Sometimes the bombs are so large that huge areas need to be evacuated for safe disposal.
And yet cars have done far more damage over the decades.
Only the city center remains mostly intact and is still pretty, but everything in the periphery is a car centric mess almost as bad as the US
Modern architecture and car centric city planning is a plague.
That's the city where Mozart's dad was born. It was probably way prettier back then
Well, it hadn't been bombed.
@@garryferrington811 stop the missinformation please.
I do live here, you know.
Try this on Wikipedia and educate yourself:
Bombing_of_Augsburg_in_World_War_II
wiki/Messerschmitt_AG
It really isn't that hard to come by the necessary sources. WW2 is well documented.
Everybody is entitled to an opinion, but with that comes the ability to make a fool of yourself as well.
So keep that in mind when jsut making stuff up.
@@Youbetternowatchthis I believe Garry was replying to the comment about Leopold Mozart, noting that his time there was before the war. (I was born there too.)
@@JohnBurkhertJr oh. I think you might be right.
I hadnt even read that first comment.
If so I am the idiot now, I suppose.
It’s fascinating to see how urban design has evolved, but there’s also an interesting counter-example from East Germany. Many historic buildings that were heavily damaged during WWII remained largely untouched during the GDR era, almost as if frozen in time. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, these buildings were beautifully restored, and now city centers like Stralsund shine in their former glory. It’s a remarkable transformation that highlights the value of preserving and revitalizing historic architecture.
Very insightful and educational video, Fern!
Describing them as 'ugly' and 'Angstraum' is spot-on!
I lived in Apolda, near Weimar where the Bauhaus school started.
In the northwestern part of town, there are these 'Bauhausen' buildings that have a dry, almost docile atmosphere.
During the day, walking through these areas it makes you feel isolated from the world around you, as if the buildings are completely empty.
At night, there's you can almost feel the eyes as they follow, which is unsettling.
It was quite a gnarly experience overall.
However, the contrast brought by the lively pubs, cozy cafes, and lush town center made the place truly feel like home.
WWI: Wrong turn
WWII: Angry man gets rejected from art school
WWIII: RUclipsr insults German cities.
German* RUclipsr insults German cities 😂
To be fair German cities were also ugly before ww2 you can look at many images that show they were not at all ornamented like Fern shows but only a few houses here and there with others plain façades with no decoration. Other countries that got their cities destroyed by Germany WW1 then in WW2 unlike Germany rebuilt them as good as they could
@@ommsterlitz1805 they were certainly not
@@Nobody_Cares913 look it up compared to the European standard they were ugly and i'm not talking about Vienna and Paris they didn't meet the standard of cities like Budapest
@@ommsterlitz1805 that's super subjective
German cities are terribly designed??? Really? Have you ever been in other countries? I suggest you visit a balkan country and I personally will be happy to show you myself what a terribly designed city really looks like starting with my hometown
How does your argument make this video's point any less valid? Lots of German cities are terribly designed, your city being even worse doesn't change that fact German cities could be so much better.
8:58 - "in other countries" - literally showing a frame of the German City Rostock with the tram - just a 3 minutes walk from my apartment :D
Great video, as always!
It's RostoCk but you're completely right. It indeed shows the "Neuer Markt" area with the town hall. Wouldn't have expected to see my hometown in this video and honestly would not have noticed it without your comment :D
@@thisisnotahandle93 Yeah, I missed the C on my keyboard - sorry :D
As an american living in Germany I wouldnt compare the cities of Germany to the cities in the US when it comes to a city built around cars. Compared to NYC, Philly, and Denver ( the only 3 major cities ive spent a lot of time in) Berlin, Munich, and Suttgart are way easier to navigate by foot and public transportation then the US cities. The roads in major German cities besides the main roads are barely big enough to fit a sedan into, there are little to no parking lots even if your willing to pay, and because of the super tiny roads the traffic is insane. Honestly for most my destinations even google with tell me it is faster by train or bus then by car (including walking time) but as for the architecture, yeah its pretty much giant grey boxes and has no identity at all
Yeah the car thing is honestly not that big of an impact compared to other factors. Just seems like OP wanted to lean on that for some reason. This was a neat video but way oversimplified and just completely glossed over major contributing factors for some reason.
US cities weren't built around cars. They were bulldozed for cars.
I honestly think it's weird how so many people rely on cars here in my hometown. Yesterday, there was like a kilometer long line of cars and with the bike you can be anywhere in the city quicker by bike than standing in this long line. Just strange and the cars really need to be reduced in favor of cleaner faster and less obstructive transprotation. Here in Germany, places are also not as large as the US for example, making it much easier to travel to any part of the city just by bike. Else, you can just hitch a train or a bus for longer distances
@@xzy_sampletext_yzx3411 Germany in my experience just isnt made for cars. 2 lane roads with barely enough room for even 1 car, traffic on every highway, 0 parking in the city, and gas isnt cheap. Germany has done a great job with public transportation and easily one the best countries to own a bike in. Yet the amount of cars is insane compared to amount of space dedicated to cars
This September i drove through Germany while visiting a friend in Luxembourg I dined in two German cities along the way, There is this strange dystopian feeling in almost all German cities.
Like there is an experiment of having a people that has lost its culture and lost its vitality in the ruins of a once great civilization. This is shown in both architecture, design, clothing, peoples behavior and various visual arts.
I believe the trauma of WWII and the trauma of the holocaust compounds with the factors that has made it bad in the rest of the world and are making things even worse in Germany than in other western nations. I think this also expresses itself in the fact that there are always a few young ethnic German drug addicts on the streets of every major German city, something which really drives the point of the nihilism and loss of vitality through! Almost a low key human sacrifice of the youth and potential at the alter of hedonism and self loathing.
Which cities? " I think this also expresses itself in the fact that there are always a few young ethnic German drug addicts on the streets of every major German city," Like everywhere lese really.
"There is this strange dystopian feeling in almost all German cities." No, there is not. That is such a generalizing BS, to be honest. So you have been to two German cities and you're making a judgement on "almost all German cities"? Nothing about my life here in Germany feels dystopian.
@@FranzKaernBiederstedt Yeah, this guy has no clue. Must have been bad weather that day :D
That's a lot of words for "hurr durr guilt complex".
@@FranzKaernBiederstedt I went to Berlin with my gymnasium friends at least annually for some years I live in Denmark and we often travel south of the border to escape the high sales tax, so I am exposed plenty to Flensburg and Hamburg. Germany is more deracinated than the rest of Europe and you feel it when you move between Germany and other nations.
There is nothing more sadistic than constructing an ugly building that generations of people have to live their lives in and that generations of people in the area have to look at. It's like taking a crap in someone's garden, leaving and then the owner of the garden has to live with the smell.
Good video. However one nit-pick: I think it looks weird that at 9:31 (and later on in the vid) the bike-symbols on the ground are backwards. They should be facing the bikers who are riding on the left side.
Maybe they were AI-generated
ADHD kicking in
@@PatNeedhamUSA no they were not. This is obviously 3D Animation with a lot of focal blur. The designer just made a mistake which is likely considering the amount of CGI shots in this video
I binged all of your vids, and then went over to Hoog and I'm currently binging those. Absolutely love all of your content. Keep it up guys :)
You are finally addressing the lack of aesthetics in german cities that so many people see. Unfortunately, many Germans are even blind to it because they grew up in the country. But friends and relatives from other countries always tell me in private that they are slightly shocked by the urban landscape. Sometimes even Eastern Europeans ask me whether Germany has become more of a second or third world country.
Unfortunately, aesthetics and beauty are currently being politically charged and interpreted as right-wing ideas, for example. Which is of course nonsense if you simply want a better quality of life and some soul in the architecture.
If it's not Art Nouveau, then at least Art Deco or something similar. 😭🙏 Fortunately, there are also associations like “Stadtbild Deutschland e.V.” that are also committed to this.
"If it's not Art Nouveau, then at least Art Deco or something similar" Yall have such bad taste, there nothing wrong with minimalism, we just need to get rid of private cars!
@@aturchomicz821 It is amusing to imply a lack of taste while at the same time propagating empty minimalism, which has no taste. 😂 We just need to get rid of Hipster socialists who do not value hard work and passion.
@@aturchomicz821 'we just need to get rid of private cars!' Let them have cake!
There's a lot wrong with minimalism.
7:25 Country boy here who have never been in a situation like this. This was an eye opener.
the miljonprrgrammet in sweden was also a massive project in the 60s that was to build 1 million homes used a lot of "bauhaus" type buildings, but are now the slums/poor areas for most cities. But it did give us a lot more infrastructure. There was supposed be built more but money dissapeared in the 70s
honestly the idea of them as slums is massively exaggerated, i've lived in miljonprogrammet areas for basically my entire life and never even gave it a second thought.
If anything they're generally some of the nicer places to live since the rent isn't terrifying and they're generally very car-light and have good public transport connections. Every now and then i hear a car going through the area and i'm reminded of just how quiet things are otherwise, and how miserable it must be to live in a place where you have constant traffic outside your windows..
The worst part about miljonprogrammet areas is just that they're generally extremely boring, you have some playgrounds and some grills and everything else is just mowed lawn. But this is thankfully starting to improve now that meadows are becoming popular and people start pushing for places to grow some veggies and flowers for themselves.
I would just want to add that this mostly applies to the cities which were devastated by WW2. If you go to say southern Germany there are quite a few medieval cities to visit: Freiburg (in parts), Tübingen, Rottweil, Konstanz, Meersburg and many many of the small medieval looking villages, that were never touched by WW2.
You also often will find places that tried to at least reconstruct parts of their downtown as it looked before WW2, if you however then go into the industrial or more modern parts of these towns, you'll find these Bauhaus style buildings aplenty.
Just to reiterate: the Bauhaus style dominates cities, which were destroyed by WW2. Places, mostly in southern Germany, which were not touched by the war still have their medieval or Imperial look about them. I can recommend Konstanz in particular, as that place blends both styles together.
Bro has not visited Balkan countries
Communism enters the chat
He will get heart attack if he see Indian cities 😂
If new residential projects are only investment opportunities there is no incentive to waste money on making things look good since you will find residents regardless because of the housing situation.
There are all sorts of grants and municipal codes for architectural design and appearance. It just depends on the city and zoning.
That's where local governments step in.
They can mandate public space requirements, colors of roofs or walls, greenery, road level crossings, bike lanes, bike parking, etc etc etc.
@@udishomer5852 they do for small stuff but big investors? nah they can build all the commie blocks they want.
But if you intend to build in or create an upper class neighborhood with high prices, you would eventually need to at least fit the existing aesthetic or create good-looking buildings in order to maximize the closing price.
@ it’s a bit more complex than that. For example, if zoning ordinances restrict multifamily homes (apartments), the property values increase without the need for things being “good looking”.Zoning can artificially reduce supply and increase demand, which can look great for a community on paper…when oversimplified.
Shanghai is an extreme, but clear example of this.
Areas in middle germany like Erfurt, Halle and Leipzig still do look like the portrayed stereoptype of old architecture. There are huge quarters in heavily bombed cities like Berlin or Hamburg that look fine as hell.
Bombs, cars, and don't forget the third tragedy. Modern architects.
The architects are hamstrung by costs and bureaucracy
Looks like you didn't watch until the end.
Postmodernism was a mistake.
And all 3 are connected by the same group at the top...
What cars have to do with building designs
I wouldn't say they are any more ugly than any other European city with modern architecture, in fact I would say that their modernism is comparatively pretty sleek and good quality when compared with places like the UK which are totally ugly and also disorganized. Even Amsterdam, if you get out of the old city center and go into a lot of the residential areas, can be pretty ugly, even uglier than anything I have seen in Germany. Of course I would prefer ornate stone masonry facades, but this is a far broader problem, Germany certainly isn't even close to the worst in this regard.
0:24 that's look like gmod city
Oh how I wish this was only true for Germany. My country, Poland, hasn't built a single beautiful building in what feels like decades now. Virtually all of our urban planners - if you could even call them that - are stuck in the previous century and still ravage the urban tissue with new, multi lane roads and shopping malls surrounded by swathes of car parking. It feels like we've finally fully embraced America's car culture from the 50s.
Ugly, generic apartment blocks are popping up everywhere with no limits.
It's quite sad.
here in Cracow architecture is (imo) absolutely beautiful, while Warsaw's is not... like the new museum next to PKiN
U must live in Eastern Poland then
@@Dara-wk5ty if you think that car centric planning happens only in the east, then come to Wrocław (urząd wojewódzki, plac Grunwaldzki... just to name a few).
literally my thoughts about my city and I'm from kyiv😭
Am I smelling a #NotJustBikes collab??
No u are coping
@@sefamimiabbo272coping from what exactly?😂
Coping with car-centrism, maybe.
"... five story buildings..."
"...stretch the buildings up to 30 stories..."
Well, that escalated quickly.
I hate how impressed I am by the smooth and natural ad integration.
Should not be this way with any let alone educational content…
@@0xbenedikt do you see the amount of effort and research they put in their videos?
They have to finance this one way or another.
Do not let this guy ever see a Turkish city or a picture of it. Ever.
True lol
Hello from Hanover. :D
I immediately thought of Michael Ende's Momo when you mentioned 'grey and cars' at the beginning...
I live and grew up in Amsterdam and i can not imagine how it would be growing up in those big, very car dependent cities. Glad to live in a pedestrian/bike friendly city as Amsterdam, unlike many sadly.
It is a headache. Do not recommend unless u really like menial driving
If you knew nothing else you’d wonder how anyone could grow up in Amsterdam. Critical thinking has left the chat. Christ man, look outside your self absorbed bubble once in a while and put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
What the fuck???
I grew up in a mix of both worlds in a city with 50k residents and I couldn’t imagine living in Münster which is one of the most bike friendly cities in the country, i freaking hate that city, there is no structure, the bicyclists drive around like idiots and you feel like the city tries everything to not make you drive a car instead of making it perfect for everyone, that’s why cities like Bielefeld are perfect, great public infrastructure, great roads for cars and enough space for both pedestrians and bikes to walk/drive around, not everyone has the ability to walk or ride a bike and for public transportation depending on where you want to get will take a lot longer than just drive there by yourself since you can’t place a train station everywhere and make trains or busses drive everywhere every 10 minutes
@ Well written.
I spent a month in Hannover this summer, for no particular reason or with little research. I wasn't in the old town but any time I would walk around the neighborhood I would really appreciate the old architecture, so surprised to hear they are known for having left the past behind. Everything is relative though, and coming from North America, Hannover really stood out to me for it's beaty and really good bike lanes.
And Hannnover is famous for it's car-dependant infrastructure and "dullness". lol.
3:24 I swear to god it's almost like he ignored the word Warsaw on purpouse
When people from Northrhine-Westphalia think that the whole country looks like their state:
True...
When people from Germany's south have never been north:
@fern-tv True...specially in the Ruhrgebiet...thats the ugliest part of germany.
@@juanDE1703 There are still plenty of smaller cities in the Ruhrpott that are quite picturesque. The region is so dense that you don't really have to travel far to get to a beautiful place.
When people with a Porsche logo do not know how Stuttgart looks
In Berlin there are many old „beautiful“ buildings, but they are all full of ugly graffiti 😂😂
I still live in a historic stucco house from 1900. What I like most about it is the tall ceiling. Perfect for a loft bed.
Germany's cities had to be built quickly following the end of WWII. They've improved a lot since then, with entire palaces, historical quarters, and churches being rebuilt from the ground up. Some are still feeling the effects of WWII and communism, like Berlin, but others, like Munich, are extremely beautiful thanks to the painstaking restoration work that's taken place there.
rebuilding and restoration is not done quickly enough. It has been 80 years and have been one of the strogest economies in the world for the last 50 years.
@@minnihd6470 East Germany brought down the West's economy substantially before it recovered. They had to dedicate billions of dollars to bringing the East up to speed with the West, let alone make it as beautiful as the West. Not to mention all the people who push back against these developments because they're worried about their tax dollars. It'll take time, but Germany will be as beautiful as it was in the 1800s once more.
true that,but it wasnt only done because ''housing had to be built quickly'' the DDR also dynamited tons of undamaged standing churches,cathedrals et cetera because ''gothic churchis does not fit in the socialist vision of the DDR'' as said by one of their leaders. it was definitely political too.
@@jayzandstra1830 also very true, but the DDR did only take up 1/3rd of the country. There are a LOT of cities in West Germany, that look ugly as fuck and have no reason they are
I visited Kassel a while back. Such a weird city with new (ugly) buildings mixed with historic buildings.
you guys are pumping out so much high quality content, its crazy. I love this channel, but please don't burn yourselves out. It needs to be fun for you, most of all :)
Architecture reflects the spirit of society, in this case: demoralization.
Unsurprisingly, people weren't all that happy shortly after WW2.
No, I see it differently. If you were to ask citizens whether they would prefer a cozy old town or a district with modern buildings made of glass, steel and concrete, a majority of 90% would choose the former. That's why I don't see that as the spirit of society. I would rather say it is the spirit of the city planners and architects, but not of the citizens.
@@callsigndd9ls897 You are leaving something important out: The people after WW2 had the choice between having a roof over the head or no roof over the head. They chose the former, which necessitated no-nonsense buildings. I don't think you quite realize just how desperate the housing situation was after WW2. The spirit of society was "I don't want to be homeless".
@@no1DdC I was built in 1948 myself and know the housing shortage from my childhood. Our apartment building (a corner house) lost the fourth floor and the corner in 1943 in bombing raids. All 15 tenants in the building had to move closer together and share the remaining apartments until it was rebuilt in 1955. So you don't have to tell me what the situation was like back then, because I experienced it myself. What I meant is not the apartment buildings from the 1950s that were supposed to alleviate this housing shortage, but the glass, steel and concrete shopping monstrosities that were built in the middle of our old town in the 1970s, and that existing, perfectly repairable old buildings were demolished to make them. The old town in my city has lost all its charm since then. In the 1970s, there was already enough money to make it better. Other old towns come alive in the evenings when people go to the street restaurants and enjoy the beautiful old buildings. In my town it's dead after the shops close; absolutely no one feels comfortable unless they absolutely have to buy something in these ugly glass, steel and concrete shopping monstrosities.
@@callsigndd9ls897 Fair enough. You're completely right about all of this. Somewhat paradoxically, in Germany at least, people are now thinking that this is how city centers are supposed to look like and want to preserve it against the onslaught of online shopping. It's bizarre.
In my opinion Berlin is a very beautiful and well designed city. The urban planning is really good, there are wide sidewalks everywhere with a great amount of pedestrian roads that act as small plazas, there are many green spaces, mass transportation is really efficient, roads are wide and well maintained reducing the traffic. An other great thing about Berlins urban planning is that everything has the right dimensions from the sidewalks to the space for green and trees between the road and to the road itself that has sufficient dimensions for lanes and parking spaces. Also minimal buildings are not as dystopian as you claim, for me minimalism gives a clean and calm vibe compared to the typical north European Renaissance architecture or Baroque, which can be really overwhelming sometimes. As long as the building is well designed in harmony with the environment and properly maintained it can be beautiful even if it’s just a simple square with windows. Also we don’t have to look all things with negativity, glass buildings can also “store” heat in cold days reducing the consumption of electricity for heating ( also in my opinion the look cool and futuristic). Anyways the video was really nice 👌🏼
If you're going to claim that those regulations stifle creativity I think you need some better examples. The examples of the regulations you gave are essential, most of them are likely written in blood. Other than that, great video as always.
I think it's fair not to mess with anything over fire or structural safety, don't clad your tower with flammable insulation for example. But I get the feeling a lot of these are ergonomic and design norms that haven't been updated in decades and are based more on vibes than science.
Thank you Simplicissimus and Hoog for this channel. Y'all are the Goats
I moved to Germany a couple of years ago, and this is pretty spot on. So many cities or large areas within cities look like depressing, car-centric hellholes, devoid of color and humanity. Of course it doesn't look like that everywhere, but it can get quite bleak many places. 100% agree with your conclusion. Also, I feel like the ugliness and "sameness" of many German inner-city areas has become something of a meme here.
Great video and graphics!! We need more cool walkable towns all over the world again!
Germany is a rich country and no longer needs quick easy housing after the devastation of world war 2. You guys can be beautiful again you know.
Yes, people are trying to build more beautiful buildings today, but unfortunately what was built in the 1950s to the 1980s is still standing and it really wasn't beautiful.
Now we need quick and easy housing because 'the market' did its thing for 30 years.
Exaggerated video with some truth to it. Car-centric city planning is one of the major reasons why cities often are neither pedestrian nor cyclist-friendly. But the cities aren’t as dystopian as described here. And it mentions Hanover. Today Hanover is an example for very good traffic and city planning. No surprise - has a green mayor…
When a new fern vid comes out, Netflix is like “why can’t we do these insane animations?”
sigma
@@Vxdiction Nah, too expensive for mass production
From what I have heard, the animators get rushed. Then again, that's probably a unanimous experience, lol.
lol netflix CHOOSES how their products look, for better or for worse. if they wanted to they could blow this youtuber out of the water. Its all about penny pinching since they know they have ~10 years tops with their current slop.
well looking at a previous fern video, i think this guy has like 4-6 German animators chained in his place in Amsterdam cranking out animations for food
the time, effort and research spent making these graphics and videos is mindblowing. I wait for videos from fern and is one of the initial viewers.
As Russian i can say that our cities are already ugly since soviet union
But your women are 😋🤤
russian blocks are just something else. i watched vid about new developments in russia, those falling apart ugly high crime dirt roads, acres of 20 stories piles of concrete, in my opinion idea of high story cheaply made housing isnt as bad as it is potrait but execution of that in russia is just horrible. we have commie blocks u have commie blocks, we are not the same lmao
Its for similar reasons
Without the USSR housing programme, people would've lived in huts with outside toilet sheds, so I don't get the point...
@@Mr.Speedy30 I love Russian women. They're best of the Slavs!
The situation with cars in Cologne is really interesting. Cologne overall has a great public transport with its expansive Stadtbahn (a sort of underground/tram hybrid) network, which comes every 10 minutes on most lines, and the city is already quite walkable, so in theory it shouldn't really be very car-dependent. But there are a few problems.
Firstly, the Stadtbahn network hasn't really seen any major expansion into the suburbs this century. For example, if you live in Hürth-Stotzheim - which is only 7 km from Cologne city centre! - the fastest car-free option (if you don't have a bicycle) to access the nearest Stadtbahn stop (Efferen on number 18) is to walk 35-45 minutes. If you can't (or don't want to) walk and you use buses, you're looking at taking an hourly bus for a 4 minute ride, waiting 30 minutes for the connecting hourly bus, taking that for 4 minutes, waiting 7 minutes for the connecting thrice-hourly bus, and taking that for 10 minutes - for a total travel time of 45 minutes (so, basically just as long or even longer than walking), assuming none of your buses are delayed/cancelled. Then you wait 8 minutes for the Stadtbahn and get to the city centre in another 17 minutes. Depart Stotzheim at 8.27, arrive in the city centre at 9.37 - 1h10m travel time.
Of course, instead of going to the Stadtbahn at Efferen, you could take the bus in the opposite direction all the way to Frechen to take the number 7 Stadtbahn - depart Stotzheim at 7.57 or 8.57 (so either half an hour earlier or later), arrive in the city centre at 8.58 or 9.58 - saving you two changes and 9 minutes travel time. Or you could do what we did in the first journey but stay on the second bus, which itself goes to the city centre, again departing Stotzheim at 8.27 and arriving in the city centre at 9.31, saving you one change and 6 minutes travel time. But whichever of these you choose, the initial bus service (or two) is still hourly, so if you miss it you're screwed.
This is all because number 9 terminates at Hermeskeiler Platz; if it were expanded down to Stotzheim (the only logical place for it to go, because Frechen to the north is served by the 7, and Efferen to the south by the 18), you could be in the city centre within 20 minutes, so it would cut your travel time by two thirds. But in the absence of that, the journey by car is only 27 minutes, so obviously most people will opt for the car.
The second problem is the lack of park and ride facilities. If Efferen Stadtbahn had a big free car parking facility, people from Stotzheim would drive the 10 minutes there and take the 17 minute Stadtbahn ride (resulting in basically the same travel time) to avoid dealing with the stress of city traffic and paying for expensive city centre car parks. But because finding a space at Efferen is already hard enough (with no one using it to park & ride), people *continue* to not use it as a park & ride and instead take their cars into the city.
This problem is even more pronounced with suburban towns & villages that are further out than Hürth-Stotzheim. In Kerpen, 20 km from the city centre, for the least-change route (bus to Frechen then Stadtbahn to the city centre), you will sit on the circuitous bus for nearly an hour before getting to the Stadtbahn, with your total travel time to the city centre being nearly 1h40m. You can take routes with more changes to shave nearly half an hour off that journey, but the thing is, you're again relying on an hourly bus and driving to Frechen would save you a full *40* minutes (total travel time 50 minutes, compared to driving into the centre from Kerpen 40 minutes) - but again, no P+R facility at Frechen.
Cologne proper (which is all nicely connected by the Stadtbahn) has a population of just over 1 million, but if you add the metro area/suburbs it adds up to almost 2 million, so basically a significant proportion of people who want to go to Cologne city centre have no convenient way of getting there other than by car. This really needs to be addressed for increased pedestrianisation to not result in a traffic nightmare!
A very good example of the duality of how to rebuild after the war is Warsaw. Where some parts of the historic center were rebuilt as best to the abilities back in the day, but then you'd just go across a street and you are in an area filled with the typical blocky houses that were so common all over the Eastern Block.
Showcase quarters for propaganda vs. where most people actually lived.
@@no1DdC Mindless smooth brain nurtured by tons of american propaganda be like:
I am German and frequently cross to the Netherlands. When you cross the border to Germany where it goes through towns, you can see how everything turns a little grey, starting with the color of the sidewalk, to the disappearing bike lane, the color of roofs, and the facades. Even in little border towns. When you cross on the highway, you feel the quality of the pavement decrease and even the highway kind of feels grey compared to the Netherlands.
No, you're wrong. You blame excessive, complex bureaucracy as the reason why it's so difficult to improve spaces, but all those "fire safety" "noise protection" "energy efficiency" and a "laundry list of other codes"
Those are good things. We _should_ have standards which infrastructure and housing must meet. The problem was and always has been _GREED_
You built tall towers and took away green spaces because of _GREED_ to fit in more people in a smaller space, and the people that occupy these types of houses are from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Because _GREED_ not because Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
Are you suggesting fire safety, noise protection, energy efficiency and the "laundry list of other codes" are there for no reason? You're absurd.
Greed is the problem. Not safety and the bureaucracy that enforces it.
"The love of money is the root of all evil."
Jesus Christ
Great video about shopify. And ... that other thing ... what was it again?
very sad that not one single east-german city was mentioned
Berlin?
@@kkrhst does not count
good point! confirms again the assumption that FERN are privileged people from west germany.
@@sudbenzer6603 i think that goes too far. all i want is some representation of the east and the fact that eastern cities are indeed very beautiful because they care more about restauration
@@bluishgentian3756 give us then some examples? I live in Magdeburg and it doesn’t seem like to be
German city planning student here, I totally agree on that regulations part. The bureaucracy here makes it sooooo difficult
Stop the trend of blending your ads in the story. Its untastefull and shows no respect to the viewer
As a german, I agree. It's actually really interesting to learn more about why German cities look the way they do
Yes, German cities have been destroyed during WW II, yes, there have been some ugly, excluding and uninviting tendencies in modern architecture, but I would definitely refrain from a generalistic judgement that German cities are overall ugly --- and that that would be a specific German phenomenon. You just have to go to neighboring Switzerland to see how they modernized some of the most beautiful old cities and towns in a very unsensitive manner without any need. There were no bombs dropped on Swiss places during WW II, they just decided to incorporate modernist architectural concepts into their city plannings... As did a lot of countries around the world. There are a lot of videos here on RUclips that show the glorious past of US-American cities which were torn down in order to build parking lots and inner city highways. I just saw a video about how Atlantic City went down a path from America's luxurious East Cost Spa to more or less a sad ghost town.
I won't deny that in every German city there are parts that don't look very nice and neat and cozy, but even some of the modernist parts near to the center of many German cities nowadays don't look that bad but rather really nice with trees and beautifully furnished public spaces building an interesting and aesthetic contrast to facades of glass. Modernist buildings are not per se ugly in every case. Some of them can really be beautiful. And not to forget that in many German cities there are still considerable numbers of historic buildings that survived WW II and provide with a connection to Germany's past. Look at Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Hannover, Nuremberg, Leipzig, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Münster, Erfurt, Augsburg, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, Mainz, Rostock, Stralsund, Bremen... They don't look exact the same way they looked like before WW II, but it's simply not true to call them ugly now in total. They all show a mixture of different styles and architectural philosophies, they show their history with wounds and healings. You find a lot of very pleasant places to hang out and feel cozy and welcome there. Some of these places are historic, but some also are modern and nevertheless beautiful and embracing.
This is better than the toilet episode
thanks for the Louisiana shoutout from amongst the worst traffic areas in all of Louisiana 8:02
The Bauhaus movement also played a role in East Germany when it was under Communist leadership. It’s why if you travel to the former East Germany you will see a lot of Angstraum architecture.
I lived in Germany for few years... it is a place where pragmatism overthrown beauty. Historical building cladded with pink insulation panels... enormous glass panels along rivers... just in case a dog fall into it... i was shocked ...
I love old German Architecture
Personally, I would prefer longer videos (mabye 30-40 minutes. And have them drop monthly instead. I think 11 minutes just leaves you wanting more because the content is so good!
I work in a NYC architectural firm
Most of the blame is energy code. It forces buildings to be squares with insulation all around it's very difficult to create interesting buildings.
Zoning is also a big issue as it forces buildings to basically match all the other buildings and create large square structures
In other words, because buildings are actually meant to serve its function rather than just to look good?
@fanniinnanetguy653
You wish.. zoning is the exact opposite of function, it's all about complying with code. It's the biggest obstacle to convenience
Also love the newly built single family houses: They are all copy-pasted and leave only ~5m between each other, so you could almost shake hands with your neighbor through the windows.
Something like a garden is limited to 5m infront and behind the house (behind which other hoses are biult), and the 2,5m of your land to each side.
It's kinda depressing, and there is no motivation to buy a newly built house, at least for me, as someone buys them all even before they are finished...
Car centric planning needs to go. Those videos about a hundred Japanese pedestrians having to stop and wait because of 5 cars really changed my perspective.
Crazy well produced, congrats
as an american who’s been to germany, i disagree; i haven’t been to any big cities except for freiburg. when i went, i stayed in a small town in southwestern most part (kandern), and it seemed very vintage (for lack of better words). even freiburg seemed less industrialized than an american city, but maybe that’s just me 🤷♂️
You managed to choose one of the nicest cities in all of Germany. Visit Hannover, Wolfsburg, Duisburg, Dortmund, whatever and you'll see what this video is talking about.
This video is focussing on bigger cities, a lot of smaller places had their old towns preserved (as in they haven't been bombed).
@@fern-tv i want to go back to germany just so i can see some of the bigger cities; i went originally for a church mission trip so we couldn’t choose where to go
I know that Tunnel at 7:30, a friend of mine had to go through it every day to get home.
Modern architecture is the biggest crime against humanity since the fall of Rome.
Absolute horror show.
Brutalist architecture is the biggest crime. But it was cheap, which is why it was built so much after WW2. Much of more modern architecture is trying to get away from the worst of the drawbacks of brutalism and make more livable spaces again.
1000% agree, someone has to study and find out in what proportions it contributes to the bad mental health epidemic going on in the west. As someone who lived in one of those communist cities and got actual depression solely due to the disgustingly ugly architecture I would say, TREMENDOUSELY.
empires suck, no big loss here. Do agree with some modernist architecture being horrifying.
@@Steamrick I love brutalism, I think it looks very unique and cool. What I hate are glass boxes.
@@ligametis brutalism has its charms, but it often could be done better. Big agree with the glass boxes.
It's so fascinating how the people of that time reacted to those changes. My grandad was from berlin and he always told me, how smart those city planners were, that they made so broad roads in berlin for the cars and everything. He always was really happy about it.
I mean, he has not lived in Berlin for over 40 years at that point ... still i had to think of him while watching this video
Ive live in 5 different german cities all around the country so far and none of them looked like the ones you described as an ugly city 💀💀
Lucky you
The ginger bread housing style was nice.
It's not just German cities, it's most cities. Sad state of reality these days.
true. We need to completely redo most cities
I have seen some of you old houses in Germany very beautiful Greetings from Denmark 🇩🇰
those videos are litteraly of deutches-quälitat (i think... in german idk i am still learning) with dutch flavor on top
your german channel is pretty great too for learning 🗣🔥
*deutsche Qualität
"The legend of the "German quality" has faded last decades. BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Volkswagen...has fallen in quality compared to the 70s 80s. Only their prices went up.
@@gaborbakos7058 what your talking about the cars are still miles above american and asian cars lol xD
also you realise german quality was created as a label to war people to not buy german producs right ? ... you know that right ?
Das qualitat ist wie viel gut
Ich mag fern
Im learning too hehe hope we get gut at deutsch
@ravenn8984 Some tips:
1. It is "Die Qualität" (Nouns start with a capital letter)
2. "Viel" does not belong in that sentence... It means quantity like 10 Apples
3. "Wie" belongs only in questions or if you compare it to something else but then you need to put it after "gut"
Nice and informative video❤
May i suggest posting videos of the electronics installation and first flight as well? I'm sure to learn something :)
your last video was about how less regulation spells apocalypse, I don't understand
Play both sides. Anything for the money!
Because his video is more informative than partisan. You can make informative videos on why less regulation causes national complications and also hold the viewpoint that more regulation could cause undesirable urbanization and homogenization on a local scale.
3:04 holy speer, it's the Big Building In Neu-Berlin™
definitely valid points, but on the topic of regulation/bureaucracy and construction codes, as a civil engineer, codes are fundamental to ensuring that designers/builders/owners do the right thing and dont build shoddy/dangerous buildings to cut costs.
The problem in Germany is that every state has its own codes so when wanting to construct houses in different cities, companies have to change their building plans and stuff for every city. I wholly support building codes and am glad that we have them, but there are just to many (the figure in the video is outdated too haha)
In the Netherlands we also have construction norms (CROW) but they are just guideliness. We can deviate if we want.
Efficency is the death of individual expression
I disagree with you on Bauhaus being practical. It’s mostly cost effective and now more than ever, it’s about the requirements and desires of those building apartments and not the people who end up living their lives in them, or having to see them…
Room layouts are often very bad so that dirt from the entrance gets dragged through the entire apartment, kitchen and dining area couldn’t be further apart and you drag your dripping garbage back through a long corridor making a huge mess and this corridor takes up way too much space and is in many ways also a security risk… Space for furniture and the location of switches and power outlets is typically just an afterthought… You often end up in a situation where corridors get too narrow once you add furniture for storing shoes and jackets, or you open your wardrobe and the door bangs against your bed, which is no larger than you…
You can laugh all you want about Feng Shui, for its esotericism, but what they call harmony, I call taking human nature into account. For instance, we prefer places where we can see the environment but don’t feel watched ourselves. Having a desk placed with your back to a door and people constantly running past you is terribly distracting… Also, size and proportions do matter to us. For instance, a 6ft man will feel a bit anxious in a room with a 6ft 2 inches ceiling and I wouldn’t be able to stand upright at all… On the other hand, who would want to sleep in a room with 20ft ceilings and a room size large enough to play entire soccer matches? If you end up setting up camp in a storage facility, chances are you instinctively create a subspace, where you feel more comfortable in…
Another thing ancient builders considered, but most modern builders don’t seem to care about are the suns movement over time and the prevailing wind direction. The prior is important if you want to make the most use of natural light and don’t want to stare into a reflecting monitor and the latter is important for ventilation! So many modern bathrooms rely on an electric ventilator which usually doesn’t have the power to get the moisture out and you end up with mould everywhere… Many modern buildings are intolerable without AC and guess what: many European countries don’t have AC, unless you’re living REALLY fancy, even if your place can reach 40°C…
We could probably have a similar discussion about Urban planning in general, but that's beyond my level of experience...I just think that many places are inefficient in design when it comes to public and private transport.
Such an important and sensitive subject. Fern succeeded to inform the general public again in such a professional manner.
the jab at hoog was so funny and unexpected from this normally no bullshit kinda channel
Because Germany was destroyed in WWII so good luck finding “Old Germany”
Look for them in southern Germany: places like Freiburg (in parts), Konstanz, Meersburg, Rottweil, Tübingen, Salem or Schwäbisch Hall were never destroyed in WW2. They are still what a lot of people think about.
Western pommern in Poland? Until 1944 this territory was German. Even I live in post German city, and old town aint change much.
@@mrrrglllrrr while I haven't been to these places I'm glad to hear that.
@@mariuslorson751 ehm, and what makes you think the North was completely destroyed? Flensburg, Lübeck, Vechta, Oldenburg etc
While you have Ludwigshafen Stuttgart, partly Mannheim etc. es PRIME examples of what was lost in WW2.
@@adrianseanheidmann4559 While the northern parts were not fully destroyed the destruction, especially in north-eastern Germany was far more widespread due to the axis of advance, which the allies took. In the Northwest you have the American-British axis of advance through Belgium and in the east the meatgrinder that was the rearguard action to slow down the Red army. The more southern regions were taken without much fighting and mostly suffered destruction due to bombing raids (see say Stuttgart or Friedrichshafen for that).
So my point is: yes there are isolated pockets of medieval structures and town centers (sometimes restored post WW2, such as many a castle) in northern Germany, the concentration is far higher in Southern Germany, because the place wasn't destroyed as much during WW2.
In Urban Planning, this discussion is for course very relevant and sometimes heated. We need to build and we need to build fast and a lot. That in itself isn't sustainable economicly or enviromentaly, because building of course is bad for the enviroment and expensive. So the only way, to make a planning area, a city, a building sustainable is to make it last. And the only way to make it last more than a hundred years is to make it beautiful, comfortable, flexible and in it's role significant enough, for people to like it and finding it worth keeping, even in over a hundred years. Doing that is one of our challenges for the future. And of course it's expensive. But building in a way that only looks ahead 30 years is even more expensive in the long run.
Well, I live in Munich and Augsburg... Its Beautiful here :D