It's no new thing for artists to try and use architectural façades as canvases, whether it's by drawing on smily faces, tye-dying churches, or erecting house-size bucket lists. The difference between those examples and this mural, just been completed in Berlin, though, is that the latter isn't abandoned; rather, it's a fully functioning, 3,000-unit co-op apartment building.
Completed by the French firm CitéCréation—"the world leader in painted walls"—the mural takes the form of a forest and zoo, and covers all 22,000 square meters of the Wohnungsbaugenossenschaft Solidarität complex. According to the artists, the goal was "to break the monolithic and oppressive urban landscape of the suburbs":
"The branches of the trees that occupy the avenue mingle with those painted on the facade, creating the illusion of a forest that proceeds without interruption. The camouflage effect is amplified in the flight of birds and gulls, herons and sparrows, attendance and fascinating read that move windows between real and imagined other, which overlook the portraits of the residents of the complex. While a bear cub, animal symbol of Berlin plays to climb on a log in trompe-l'oeil." [Google translated from French] Spanning nearly an entire block, the work, or so the artists claim, beats out the current world record-holder for the largest mural on Earth, Colorado's three-mile-long Puebo Levee Mural Project, from a from a square footage perspective. Another look:
· This Could be the Largest Mural in the World [BuzzFeed]
· All Abandonment Issues posts [Curbed National]
· Sky Arts HD - Berlin: 22 thousand square meters for the mural records - September 2, 2013 [CitéCréation]