Political Penguin

I like doing these comparisons between different countries, after all comparative systems (primarily social welfare) are my academic background although I’m quite rusty these days.
The one thing you notice in Germany, or at least I do which probably says something about my love for buildings and architecture is the roofs. When I think about the roofs on buildings back home they seem drab, boring and unimaginative in comparison. Even on our older buildings that in other ways are beautiful to behold, it seems that the roofs are an afterthought, something plonked on top to keep the rain out but not utilised to their full effect.

When we get into housing estates that most of us reside in the picture gets worse. From the late 60′s onwards to the present we seem to have become addicted to lifeless and drab concrete roofing tiles as if there were no alternative. Mark this against slate which for obvious reasons dominates Welsh roofs and emanates a sheer natural beauty of its own.
However in Germany, the traditional baked terracotta, a design and style that stretches back to Roman times is the one that is favoured.

It’s not used uni-formally though in a single style. There’s multiple styles and shapes of roofing tile, of different colours and textures. Personally I quite like the glazed tiles which shimmer in the sun and you can see here.

I wish I had more time to get around and take more photos, I don’t think we’ll be going back into the city centre before we leave but some of the roofs there have been imaginatively used to almost artistic extent. Even in the suburbs there’s a great sense of individuality about roofing which probably stems from it being more traditional in Germany to buy a plot of land and build your own house as opposed to our get a developer to put up a lot of homogeneous lifeless boxes mentality that we have in the UK.

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