“Why does this building remind me so of LOTR?”, you might wonder. Well this is the Einstein Tower, and no it was not used during filming the trilogy. It is just made in that same style, the early twentieth century. The Einstein Tower is actually an astrophysical observatory and is located in the Albert Einstein Science Park in Potsdam, Germany. It was built by Erich Mendelsohn, and he wanted it to be a symbol for the greatness of Einstein’s work. It is made out of bricks, but mostly concrete, that gives it a smooth design.
The tower is today renovated because it was bombed and destroyed during the WWII. Inside you can find among other things a huge solar telescope that is designed by a man who worked close with Einstein. The genius himself said one word when he saw the tower for the first time; “organic”, he said and didn’t express anything else, so the architect didn’t know if it was positive or negative, and he will probably never know. Speaking of the genius himself; here is his portrait carved inside a thick phonebook.
