Willy Brandt House

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View from the Landwehr Canal , Wilhelmstrasse on the right , October 2015

The Willy-Brandt-Haus in Berlin has been the seat of the federal headquarters of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) since 1999 and is located in the Kreuzberg district at the corner of Wilhelmstrasse 140 and Stresemannstrasse  28 in the immediate vicinity of Mehringplatz . It is named after Willy Brandt , who was Governing Mayor of West Berlin from 1957 to 1966 , SPD party chairman from 1964 to 1987 and German Chancellor from 1969 to 1974 . The foundation stone was laid in 1993.

prehistory

Willy Brandt , 1980

In the year after German reunification in 1991, the capital city resolution decided that the German Bundestag and major parts of the federal government should move to Berlin . As a result, the SPD also wanted to move its party headquarters as quickly as possible from the Erich-Ollenhauer-Haus in Bonn to the new federal capital. We were looking for a location near the historic address Lindenstrasse  3 in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Here - in the "Lindenhof" - from 1914 the party executive, the party school and party operations of the SPD were housed until it was occupied by SA troops after the " seizure of power " in 1933 . The Nazi regime later appropriated the building and it was so badly destroyed in World War II that it had to be demolished in 1962.

building

The 3225 m² corner property for the new headquarters was acquired in 1992. The architect Helge Bofinger had already delivered the award-winning design of a residential and commercial building for this area as part of the International Building Exhibition 1984/1987 (IBA), which, however, had not been built. The intention at the time was to set the tone as stimulating as possible in the area in the south of Friedrichstadt , which was characterized by numerous fallow land and a disjointed, low-quality post-war development . Bofinger's draft at the time largely coincided with the ideas of the new builders. Where necessary, the plans were adapted to the changed usage profile and implemented in just two years of construction. The Willy-Brandt-Haus was inaugurated on May 10, 1996, and the party executive board officially moved in on July 25, 1999 .

A seven-storey building was built on a tapering plot of land; the eaves height of 22 meters is adapted to the surroundings. Stylistically, the house shows clear echoes of classical modernism , it is reminiscent of well-known buildings from the 1920s and early 1930s. The essential materials are glass, light limestone and shimmering blue metal. A sophisticated ecological concept enables low energy consumption, reduced emissions and the use of natural resources, for example through a partially green roof with 300 m² solar cells . From a passage that connects Stresemannstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse, one reaches a house-high, glazed atrium and further, via stairs and glass elevators, the various levels of the building. The Willy Brandt House is designed as an open house. Suitable areas and rooms are provided for cultural activities - art exhibitions and the like. Shops and restaurants are located on the ground floor . The party chairman has his office on the fifth floor, and at the top of the building, behind a semicircular glass front , is the large presidium room. More than 60,000 visitors come every year.

sculpture

The Willy Brandt Monument

A much-noticed detail is the larger than life bronze Willy Brandt monument in the atrium of the house. This work by the painter and sculptor Rainer Fetting is 3.40 meters high and weighs over 500 kilos. It shows the politician in an almost private, but very concentrated attitude, not idealized, not even naturalistic, but recognizable. Numerous visitors can be photographed in front of the sculpture . At events of public interest, for example press conferences , it inevitably comes into view of the cameras.

For the Willy Brandt Park in Stockholm , Fetting made a smaller copy of the sculpture in the Willy Brandt House.

On behalf of the party, a Corten cube with the three letters "S", "P" and "D" was created in 2011 as a striking ornament , which was placed on a corner in front of the main entrance on the footpath. The production was in the hands of the Berlin company Fittkau Metallbau und Kunstschmiede .

literature

Web links

Commons : Willy-Brandt-Haus (Berlin)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ SPD party executive: The party headquarters. Retrieved August 2, 2019 .
  2. ↑ SPD-Würfel, accessed on September 23, 2018.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 0 ″  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 18 ″  E