Wedding Brunnenstrasse redevelopment area
The redevelopment area Wedding Brunnenstrasse ( SWB ) was an urban development investment by West Berlin that lasted almost 30 years and an important part of Berlin's urban renewal . It is considered to be one of the largest areas with area rehabilitation in Germany. The aim was to consciously control urban development in Berlin's Brunnenviertel . When it started in 1963, the area comprised around 39,000 residents in 14,700 apartments on 186 hectares.
location
The SWB encompassed most of what is now the Brunnenviertel in the Gesundbrunnen district of Berlin on both sides of Brunnenstrasse . In the 1960s, the area was in the southern part of the Wedding district (which became part of the Mitte district during the 2001 administrative reform ). At that time the district was bordered on three sides by the Berlin Wall and was considered to be on the outskirts. Before 1961 and since 1990 the location is again in the inner city of Berlin . Despite its location on the outskirts of West Berlin, the planners pointed out the proximity to Alexanderplatz and took into account the proximity to the city in their designs.
The area was 186 hectares . It was bordered to the south by Bernauer Straße and to the east by the freight yard of the Nordbahn (today: Mauerpark ). In the west it reached as far as Gartenstrasse . The Volkspark Humboldthain and the AEG-Werke Brunnenstrasse were not part of the redevelopment area. The Gesundbrunnen railway system completes the area in the north.
prehistory
After the Second World War , the massive housing shortage had to be resolved with quick repairs to buildings and intensive new construction. However, as early as the 1950s, there were considerations to create “conditions that were as close as possible to the current state of urban development after normalization”. In 1955, the Weddingen city council Walter Nicklitz, together with the sociologist Ilse Balg, published the documents for the preparation of a redevelopment law .
In March 1963, the then governing mayor Willy Brandt decided on the first urban renewal program in West Berlin . In the same year, the Berlin Senate asked the then eleven university chairs for architecture and urban planning to take part in an ideas competition. “None of the submitted works assumed that the existing building structure would be preserved.” The winning idea came from Fritz Eggeling from the Technical University of Berlin . In 1964, the Urban Planning Working Group (AGS) founded by Fritz Eggeling was commissioned to draw up a general concept. This was in 1966.
At this point in time, the Ernst-Reuter-Siedlung, designated as a demonstrative construction project (completed in 1954), was already visible . For the then building senator Rolf Schwedler , organizational, financial and legal experience for the "major renovation tasks of the next few years" was gathered at this settlement (1958). The subsequent step towards the renovation of the area in Wedding and there in the SWB was only considered a first milestone for further large-scale renovations; City planners called the area "redevelopment laboratory".
Start of renovation
Berlin opted for the entrepreneur support model. It was not the public sector that was supposed to buy the existing buildings from the owners and then demolish them and make the areas ready for construction, but five large housing companies. These were municipal companies like Degewo , but also cooperatives like the Vaterländischer Bauverein . GSG was founded in 1965 specifically for commercial space . The purchase meant a change from private ownership of small parcels (a house) to ownership of entire blocks and streets. The “comprehensive land order” was viewed positively. In this way, the squares could be rearranged in favor of larger courtyards, space could be created for school and sports facilities and the basis for speculation was removed.
The first phase of the redevelopment consisted of the resettlement of the residents. The tenants had to leave their houses or were lured out of their inadequate apartments in new buildings in other parts of the city with advertising tours. Numerous people moved into the first houses of the Märkische Quarter , which was built at the same time, and the Gropiusstadt .
Problems and resistance
Compared to the renovation measures in other parts of the city, especially in Kreuzberg , which were accompanied by protests , the demolition and new construction in Wedding proceeded without major unrest. Documentary films on YouTube from the 1970s also show active resistance to what was later criticized as “clear-cut renovation”. In 1973 young people occupied a youth club in a demolished house in order to keep their meeting place going. Hardt-Waltherr Hämer , pioneer of cautious urban renewal , was involved in the model renovation of Putbusser Straße and was able to show in 1968 that renovating old buildings did not have to be more expensive than new buildings.
Implementation problems also hindered the implementation of the project. On the one hand, the large housing associations had already acquired 43 percent of all required land by 1968. But there were also owners who refused to sell their properties. That is why the area first gained notoriety because of its demolished houses. The date for the start of construction of several blocks was postponed, large open spaces and ruins dominated the image of the district for many years. The first apartment blocks were not built until the early 1970s. It was originally expected that the entire project would take 10–15 years - that is, it would be completely finished in 1978 at the latest.
Construction phase
“The period from 1972 to 1983 was the main focus of the structural renovation, which reached its peak values in the early 1980s in terms of demolition and new residential construction.” The redevelopment program was formally completed in 1990.
Result
After 30 years of renovation, the number of apartments in the entire Brunnenviertel district fell from 15,500 to 9,200. At the same time, a larger number of apartments with more rooms than before were created. The built-up area remained the same, but the residential floor area decreased by 15 percent. The population fell from 39,000 to 21,200. The goal of "detachment" has been achieved.
The result of the perceived success apart from dry numbers is controversial. Critics point to the loss of old buildings and the high proportion of people who need state support (keyword: lack of mix). Residents, on the other hand, emphasize that they like to live in the Brunnenviertel, appreciate the large courtyards, the bright apartments, their balconies and the greenery.
literature
- Various authors in: Urban renewal Berlin. Ed .: Senate Department for Building and Housing, Berlin 1990.
- Heinrich Suhr, Dieter Enke: The phase of the sixties .
- Schmidt, Andreas K .: From stone Berlin to the open-air museum of urban renewal . Hamburg 2008.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Urban development funding - history. Retrieved April 7, 2021 .
- ↑ a b c Wedding District Office (ed.): 25 years of urban renewal for people in Wedding . Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-9801875-7-8 , pp. 26 .
- ↑ a b c d e Heinrich Suhr, Dieter Enke: The phase of the sixties. In: Senate Department for Building and Housing (Ed.): Urban renewal Berlin. Experiences, examples, perspectives . Berlin 1990, p. 38 .
- ^ Willy Brandt: Government declaration on the 1st urban renewal program . March 18, 1963.
- ↑ Putte Film Part 1.wmv. Retrieved April 7, 2021 .
- ↑ Frank Baer: No need to panic. Roman, Albrecht Knaus Verlag, 1982.
Coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 33 ″ N , 13 ° 23 ′ 34 ″ E