Old Ku'damm corner

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The old Ku'damm-Eck, 1996

The Old Ku'damm-Eck was one of the architects and Senate building director Werner Düttmann built (1921-1983) Berlin multifunctional building at Kurfürstendamm corner Joachimsthalerstrasse in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg . It was built by Düttmann in collaboration with Peter Stürzebecher, P. Werner, D. Winter and W. Wörner between 1969 and 1972 and had a total of 13 floors, five of which were underground.

use

In the old Ku'damm-Eck, which was designed as a multifunctional building, were u. a. a panopticon , a bowling alley , cinemas , the Café des Westens on the first floor, restaurants and various shops that were accessed through multi-storey inner passages , escalators and elevators. Three main entrances led to a central hall. There were four underground parking levels with 320 parking spaces, a technical level and access to the Kurfürstendamm underground station .

construction

In terms of construction, the building was a reinforced concrete skeleton with a column grid, curtain walls and several fixed access cores on the rear of the building. An innovative element was the use of plastic for the facade elements, which is said to have caused certain problems with fire protection .

architecture

From the street, the Alte Ku'damm-Eck presented itself as a composition of white cubes that seem to slide past each other and penetrate each other in places - a composition in which Düttmann reflects the dynamic style of Erich Mendelsohn with typical elements of the 1970s (rounded corners, grid facades) seems to connect. What is striking is the strong unity of the horizontally emphasized façades or their small proportion of windows and the clear predominance of wall surfaces in the upper part of the building. Thanks to these stylistic devices, the building appears both metropolitan and autonomous . Similar to the International Congress Center (ICC) by Ralf Schüler and Ursulina Schüler-Witte from 1976–1980, Düttmanns Ku'damm-Eck also has features that are reminiscent of science fiction and can be used as a document for the architecture of the early 1970s be viewed in West Berlin . Cornelius Hertling , the former president of the Berlin Chamber of Architects , praised the Ku'damm-Eck as follows:

“Very nice building, diversely structured, with facade technology that was very modern at the time […] So to add something like the new Ku'damm-Eck instead of this interesting, diversely structured and spatially interesting building, that is pure commerce, pure overuse of floor plans [...] "

- Cornelius Hertling

Multimedia elements

At the corner of Kurfürstendamm and Joachimsthaler Strasse, the Alte Ku'damm-Eck had a 300 m² light grid advertising space that could generate colored moving images and on which weather reports and short messages were also presented. The moving images of the light grid combined with colored neon signs, advertising posters and applications to create a modern, urban architectural aesthetic. The model for this early example of multimedia architecture was probably the Times Square Ticker or Zipper in New York's Times Square . The successor building to the old Ku'damm-Eck now has a multimedia wall in the same place, which is 104 m² in size.

Criticism, demolition and new construction

Today's Ku'damm-Eck , 2009

Because of its size - which is beyond the boulevard's standards - its strong unity and its winding, mostly artificially lit interiors, the Alte Ku'damm-Eck attracted criticism early on and for some it became a synonym for the West Berlin building sins of the 1970s, whereby its plastic-expressive qualities were ignored. Despite its popularity, the Alte Ku'damm-Eck never received a conservation order . In 1996 the building was closed, in 1998 it was removed asbestos , torn down and replaced by today's Ku'damm-Eck , which was designed by the Hamburg architects Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp). It is a 45-meter-high ten-storey commercial building with a central cylinder structure over a lower, undulating base. The sculpture ensemble The Judgment of Paris by Markus Lüpertz was set up on the protruding round corner of the base . The building now houses the C&A clothing store and the Swissôtel hotel .

literature

  • Entry no. 61: "Ku'damm-Eck". In: Martin Wörner and Doris Mollenschott: Architectural Guide Berlin. Reimer, Berlin 1990, p. 44.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cornelius Hertling: Industrial building and its protagonists. In: Günther Peters (Ed.): History and future of industrial construction. Conference materials of the day of regional and local history, Marzahn-Hellersdorf 2001. Nora, Berlin 2002, ISBN 978-3-935445-99-3 , pp. 29–31, quoted from: Obituary of the Berlin Chamber of Architects on its President Cornelius Hertling. P. 5 .
  2. ↑ The 104 square meter video screen on Kurfürstendamm. AF-FIX advertising company, accessed September 28, 2019.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 13.1 ″  N , 13 ° 19 ′ 53.7 ″  E