German architect Mark Braun designed a fully glazed office building for Ernst & Young with 400 employees. Its construction carries echoes of the revolutionary idea of Mies van der Rohe, but is much more modest. The streamlined forms have replaced expressive sharp corners, and Brown sees the main advantage of his work in its environmental friendliness and rational use of resources.
The building with a height of 50 m (12 floors) seems to consist of two parts, but in reality it is a single whole. This decision was caused by the very inconvenient, triangular, shape of the building site. The building will appear next to the famous cultural center "Trenenpalast" - the former checkpoint between East and West Berlin, nicknamed the "Palace of Tears" because of the sad partings between residents of different parts of the city that took place there. Now this historical monument is under the protection of the state, and construction work in the neighborhood will not harm it.
It is planned to start the construction of the Mark Brown building this fall, and to complete it in the fall of 2008.
It should be noted that Norman Foster, David Chipperfield and Peter Eisenman also took part in the competition for the design of this office building.
