Haus der Kulturen der Welt

[BBB3]

Final10 by BBB3viz, on Flickr

Here a few images done last year, the latest in a series about re-creating modernist architecture in Berlin and beyond.

Known today as the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures), this building is the work of US architect Hugh Stubbins, a student of Walter Gropius in Harvard. It was erected in 1957 in Berlin’s Tiergarten for the international building exhibition as a gift by the US government to the city.

As usual, the modelling was done in 3ds Max and rendered in Vray. The trees were modelled in GrowFX and distributed using Itoosoft's Forrest Pack. I used MightyTiles and MultiTextures for most of the bricks and tiles.

The piece took several months, on and off, to complete and is not fully finished yet. At some point I intend to finish the interior of the main hall.


KongressFinal3 by BBB3viz, on Flickr


KongressFinal2 by BBB3viz, on Flickr


KongressFinal by BBB3viz, on Flickr


KongressFinal8 by BBB3viz, on Flickr


KongressFinal7 by BBB3viz, on Flickr


KongressFinal6 by BBB3viz, on Flickr


KongressFinal5 by BBB3viz, on Flickr


KongressFinal4 by BBB3viz, on Flickr

[glorybound]

these are probably the best I have seen... awesome!

[flino2004]

Excellent as usual... My only comment is the dirt texture on the curved roof.... It doesn't look right, the dirt won't go radial when is vertica

[deflix]

Technically superlative work with a high level of polish and attention to detail as usual!

Despite this I feel your grade is too heavy and borders on drab, and I don't think DOF is appropriate for these kind of shots as it kills the scale and nobility of the subject.

[joconnell]

Bertrand, you're a monster

[chrisjacks21]

Nice! Although I do agree with deflix on the DOF.

[Chris]

These are great. Is this scene illuminated with and hdri and rendered with BF? Curious about the workflow.

[Slazzo]

is it me or all of the images look a bit grayish? desaturated... kind of semi BW

[Pixelcon]

Its good to see more exteriors from you! I'm so used to seeing such amazing interior work that it's a pleasant change up.

Very nice!

[BBB3]

Thanks a lot for the feedback, guys. Always much appreciated.

Flino2004: You are right. To an extent, the dirt follows the grooves in the cast concrete, but not to the extend it does on my images (see photo ref below). It's a silly oversight that could have been easily corrected in post. Oh well, next time!



Slazzo: Yes, I desaturated them quite a bit in post. I thought it fitted the slightly faded subject matter. But it was a bit of a subconscious decision.

Chris: Yes, HDRI only for the lighting. The images were mostly rendered with IR-LC.

Deflix: You may be right on the PP. As for the DOF, I was trying to emulate a medium format camera, which has quite a shallow DOF. I'll dive more into the subject at some point.

[bardo]

Thank you to post your work to the community...as always a quality reference for archviz.

Just two words:
1 -about the second image that i don't like very much... I think it's boring and it's the only that give me immediately a CG impression.
2 -for the other images, I agree that a bit more saturation could be perfect (for me, obviously)... for example, the second to last is perfect because has a warmer appeal.

Except these, beautiful and really inspiring.
Also the subject is good and you did a good choice to render it.

I have a question about these kind of works... Have you the drawings of the project?? Or did you do only by photos and some googleing??

[simmsimaging]

These look great! I like the mood you created. It's not a sales brochure after all

[peterguthrie]

Nice job Bertrand!

My favourite is KongressFinal8 which seems to be better exposed than a lot of them (the trees go almost black in many of them) and because I feel the colour grading works best in it. It also suits having the DOF whereas I agree with others that often the DOF looks a tad too much.

Composition wise, KongressFinal5 is just damn sexy!

[BBB3]

Thanks for the feedback.

Bardo: The second image isn't my favourite either. Perhaps a little empty. In order to model the building, I relied on books, some small drawings, etc. But the big difference was being able to visit the actual building and take hundreds of photos for reference and textures.

Peter: I still have the unprocessed raw renders. I might try to raise the exposure on some of them. There may be a problem with the calibration of my monitor as they look fine here but a bit dark indeed on my Ipad.

[pixela]

Hi Bertrand,
First of all, I must say that these set of renders are very well executed with your attention to detail and your level of expertise and your compositions. They all carry your hand touch and wherever I lay my eye upon the images, I see another interesting detail which makes your images great.

Just a very subjective comment based on personal taste:
But I can't say I like the color palette on these set of images. It is not the desaturation but I feel like color palette describes a different content. Maybe I would have perceived it differently if I watched these images as frames of a film rather than watching as architectural photography.

Congratulations for the great set of images.