I still have some memories of the old Narva tower near Warschauer Straße, but I never really explored that area as a child. It was interesting to walk around and see how much the area has changed.

The VEB Narva Kombinat Berlin bulb factory was the central manufacturer of light sources—especially light bulbs—in the GDR. In 1992, production stopped, and HypoVereinsbank converted the buildings into office spaces. During the renovation of Building IV in 1998, four ‘tuff’1 fountains, designed by Prof. Gustav Lange2 and sent over from Slovenia,3 were placed in the inner courtyards. The idea was to connect elements of nature with the urban environment.

I wonder if they’ll leave the stones as they are and just let nature continue to shape these monolithic blocks. Due to erosion and the wear of time, the water finds new paths to flow, and each stone looks and sounds different.

Soundscape:

  1. Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ↩︎

  2. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Lange_(Landschaftsarchitekt) ↩︎

  3. http://www.steinmetz-schnell.de/c_mnu02_Leistung-cid_9-id_5.html ↩︎