Anton-Saefkow-Platz
| Anton-Saefkow-Platz | |
|---|---|
 |
|
 High-rise residential buildings on the north and west sides of the square, 2010 |
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| Basic data | |
| place | Berlin |
| District | Fennpfuhl |
| Created | 1975 |
| Newly designed | 2004-2008 |
| Confluent streets |
Anton Saefkow Promenade |
| Buildings | see: some buildings and a swimming pool |
| use | |
| User groups | Pedestrians, cyclists |
| Space design | Architect team Dieter Rühle (1970s / 1980s); Group F and Nicolai Koehler, Freiräumer (2004–2008) |
| Technical specifications | |
| Square area | approx. 1400 m² |
| building-costs | for the renewal € 1.37 million |
The Anton Saefkow Square is a square in Berlin district Fennpfuhl of Lichtenberg . The square was created in the early 1970s when the GDR's first large housing estate was being built . The history of the square is thus inextricably linked with the construction and history of the residential area at the Fennpfuhl. It is not a square in the classic sense, as it has neither a clearly defined edge nor a surrounding development.
Name and location
Since April 2, 1975, the square has been named Anton Saefkows , a communist resistance fighter. The surrounding streets also bear the names of resistance fighters . The square is bounded in the north by Landsberger Allee , in the east by Weißenseer Weg , in the south by Karl-Lade-Strasse and in the west by Franz-Jacob-Strasse. The streets mentioned do not directly affect the square. It was not until a few years later that the footpath running directly on the west side of the square was referred to as the Anton-Saefkow-Promenade , but it is not an officially dedicated street.
History and Buildings
Beginnings
Like many other residential areas in East Berlin , Anton-Saefkow-Platz was created by a collective led by the architect Dieter Rühle. The place is inserted into a park-like setting, the Fennpfuhlpark to the eponymous for the residential area Fennpfuhl with paved areas and is implemented and built with houses in plate - and reinforced concrete - frame construction . The only exceptions are two historic buildings: the built of brick in 1889 leather office twin buildings of the brothers mallet and a factory villa of 1905/1906. In the 1980s, the Lichtenberg district's registry office was housed in the villa at Anton-Saefkow-Platz 7; After renovation and privatization, you can get married again here. The buildings mentioned are on the Berlin list of monuments.
Residential houses
The square is dominated by several high-rise residential buildings that surround the square to the west and south. They are grouped into three building complexes, home to the ground floor area restaurants, little shops, a savings banks branch, a bookstore and Lichtenberger City Library .
After the fall of the Wall, the German Football Museum was set up above the large business area of the former Schlecker store on the initiative of three football fans in 2009 . The museum had to close at this point in 2014 due to insufficient visitor numbers and excessive losses. As the owner, the housing company now operates an advice and visitor center with a small photo gallery in the rooms.
From a department store complex to a new residential and commercial building
In the middle of Anton-Saefkow-Platz is the former consumer department store . The four-storey house, which was built in prefabricated construction in 1985 and was used by Kaufhof AG until the beginning of the 2010s, was empty from 2008 to 2010 when the Kaufhof moved to Ringcenter III . The ground floor windows and entrances were nailed up. During this time, construction experts developed numerous ideas for a new use, ranging from small-scale shops to a sports and wellness center to demolition.
At the beginning of August 2008, with the support of the District Assembly (BVV), a day of action took place where graffiti artists from Rio de Janeiro , Barcelona and Berlin were able to work extensively on the former department store building. In front of spectators on the surfaces of the building, they created their inspirations for the poems that were subsequently presented. The sprayer created a colorful belly band around the building.
The Lichtenberg district office finally sold the building at the end of 2009 to private investors Arndt Ulrich and Lutz Lakomski, who had already organized the renovation and conversion of historical buildings in other Berlin districts ( Charlottenburg , Alt-Hohenschönhausen ). Their plan, presented and confirmed at the beginning of 2010, contained a combined use for shopping and living. First, the underground car park was filled with recycled material, then the large building was gutted. Then renovations were carried out on the individual floors, in particular for fire protection and the creation of closed apartments; the supply lines were largely retained. The inner building areas, which could not be supplied with daylight, were converted into storage rooms.
The first construction phase was completed by Christmas 2010, which also included the removal of the raised bed to the west. The interior work was accelerated. New suppliers have been won for the ground floor: an NKD store, Rossmann , TEDi and an old Berlin pub. The upper floors were converted into barrier-free apartments with around 60 square meters of living space and all of them were allocated by spring 2012. From the outside it is clearly visible that the apartments have their own balconies or loggias by withdrawing the window front. The aluminum facade from its original state was retained. A total of 85 apartments with 4900 square meters of living space were built.
In the summer of 2011, the NKD , TEDi, a hairdresser and a PC service provider had already moved in. Instead of temporary use by REWE, there is now a Norma supermarket. The beer parlor eventually became a distillery , operated by the traditional bakery Plötner , which has a pastry shop in the high-rise building opposite. The total investment in the property was around 18 million euros.
The district office, the investors and the Fennpfuhl Citizens' Association called for a competition in July 2011 to find a new, catchy name for the shopping center. Six months later , Fennpfuhl-Karree was chosen as the winner of 197 submissions . In 2013, the project received the Lichtenberg district's builder award in the category of conversion .
Former department store
The consumption was between March 1985 and April 1986, a food purchase hall on the western edge of the square built. The building was after 1990, first from Bolle , then by the retail chain separately acquired and rebuilt. After the company merger, the low-rise building came to REWE , which had it demolished in 2011. A new building was built in the same place in 2011/2012, which was opened at the beginning of October.
Anton Saefkow Promenade
Overall, the residents were less and less satisfied with the condition of the square and its accessibility at that time and made suggestions for changes. A planning team (Group F and Nicolai Koehler, Freiräumer) worked out renovation plans on behalf of the district administration in 2004 and discussed them with stakeholders and citizens. Among other things, the access from the north (from Landsberger Allee) has become more inviting: Since then, stairs and an adjacent ramp have led up to the pedestrian area, and expanded metal seating has been set up. The approximately 50-meter-wide promenade has been restructured: a footpath lined with colored slabs runs right next to the double dwelling. To the east of it there are a number of new flower beds in which the existing ornamental fountains have been embedded. The adjoining, parallel, narrow footpath now also provides access to a functional playground for children of various ages.
Almost half of all work was co-financed with funds from urban redevelopment in the east ; the renovation cost a total of 1.37 million euros .
The redesign of the promenade was largely completed in 2010 with the redesign of the access to the square in the northwest, from Karl-Lade-Strasse. The stairs - albeit flat - were replaced by a gentle ramp, which was given the same paving as the promenade.
Swimming pool
The Berliner Bäder-Betriebe took over the swimming pool at Anton-Saefkow-Platz 1, which opened in January 1981, from the East Berlin magistrate after the fall of the Berlin Wall . The hall has a 25 m swimming lane with an aluminum ladder as an entry aid and a non-swimmer pool with stairs and a water slide. The walls of the hall are decorated with a wall mosaic. In addition to public swimming, the hall is also used for school and club swimming. There is also a sauna.
Fountains and sculptures
At the beginning there were four different fountains on the square , which were considered typical examples of art and socialist urban planning in the GDR.
Monumental fountain (until 2009)
Between 1985 and December 2008 , the monumental fountain , built according to a design by Peter Schubring , was located on an area next to the department store building laid out with concrete slabs . It was polemically popularly referred to as the " armored cruiser " , probably because of its massive architecture of around 300 square meters of concrete slabs arranged vertically and horizontally . The height of the sculpture alone was about six meters. The large fountain basin, slightly lowered from the level of the square, was accessible so that children could play and splash around in it. It had been dry since 1993 because both the water pipes and the concrete had become dilapidated. In 2006 the district office called for an open competition to redesign the fountain. Susanne Baier's design, which was awarded first prize, provided for a moss planting and a swamp bed . But after extensive criticism from the residents, the idea of designing with moss was dropped in 2008. A new design concept, again drawn up by Susanne Baier, provided for a conversion of the system with a lowered water basin and renovation of the pipes and concrete parts by 2010, for which 100,000 euros had been budgeted in the district budget. In November 2008, BVV Lichtenberg made a new decision: Because there was not enough money for the renovation of all previous parts of the well (estimated cost: 300,000 euros), it was instead completely demolished by the beginning of December 2008. After that, parts of the area in front of the department store were given new pavement , a larger area was planted with young almond trees, between which gravel was spread at ground level. A simple fountain was built further to the east (see illustration below).
Water features
The electronically controllable water features consist of two parallel rows of a total of eleven nozzles. They are arranged at ground level on the eastern edge of the square on an area of 14 m × 8.4 m. The company Eberhard Garbe from Rostock carried out the work. The ceremonial commissioning of the fountain system took place on October 16, 2009.
Clinker wall fountain
The brick wall fountain , built in 1984 according to plans by Jürgen Karnopp , was located on Karl-Lade-Straße opposite Rudolf-Seiffert-Straße 17. It was also called the water wall and consisted of a 20 meter long wall with three water basins in front of it. On this wall made of dark red / brown ceramic shaped stone , water ran down and over steps into a collecting basin. The water shot out in an arch from some of the round ceramic decorations. When the square was redesigned around 2010, the soiled and no longer functional fountain was fitted with a tendril trellis and since then has no longer been perceptible as a water feature. However, it forms a clear demarcation from the newly built car park for visitors to the new retail facilities.
Ball fountain
On the Anton-Saefkow-Promenade there is a spherical fountain , which was also built in 1984 based on a design by Jürgen Karnopp. It is a square, high-lying well basin with a valley-shaped hollow. The outer sides are clad alternately with split clinker bricks and concrete slabs. In the hollow there are numerous ceramic balls of different sizes, between which small fountains bubble. In 2008 this fountain was simplified: In a smaller basin, a few spheres lie between low fountains.
Erratic well
The boulder fountain was designed in 1983 based on ideas from Lothar Scholz . He was in the narrow green space of the promenade. A 27-ton boulder found here during construction work for the Fennpfuhl residential area was pierced and placed on a small concrete mound in which there were small hollows. Water oozed out of the stone.
When the promenade was redesigned, this fountain was taken out of service and given a different place between some newly planted trees.
Sculptures
Directly on the square, set up between the former department store and the large double high-rise, there is a multi-sided limestone sculpture entitled Der Entfesselte . It is a work by Siegfried Krepp , which was made in 1989 and is an honor for the namesake of the square.
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In November 2011, the bronze sculpture called the tree monument , which comes from the workshop of the sculptor Michael Klein , was set up between the library and a bookstore . The subject is borrowed from a text by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry : “Peace is a tree that needs long growth.” It was set up on the initiative of the Hohenschönhauser Housing Association (HoWoGe) with support from the architects Rühle & Partner.
Events in the square
In September 2003, the Lichtenberg district office organized the festival on Anton-Saefkow-Platz for the first time in coordination with local residents and business people . Music groups present themselves here, there are culinary specialties, children's activities and, at the end of the evening, a fireworks display . Since then, the festival has been taking place annually with growing popularity. It is now officially called the Fennpfuhl Festival and has the motto “We from here”.
At around the same time, a weekly market of free traders established itself on the square.
literature
- Federal Institute for Building, Urban and Spatial Research (Ed.): Conversion of non-residential buildings into residential properties - Documentation of the case studies, 2015 , PDF version
Web links
- Anton-Saefkow-Platz. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near Kaupert )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Monika Arnold: Visiting the Football Museum, reader report online in the Berliner Morgenpost , accessed on January 5, 2019.
- ↑ Abspfiff on Anton Saefkow place . Retrieved January 5, 2019.
- ↑ When poetry and graffiti fall into the water . In: Lichtenberg-Hohenschönhausener , August 7A / 2008.
- ↑ Berliner Morgenpost , weekend edition for Lichtenberg from 23/24. July 2011: Name wanted .
- ↑ Pankow: Market stalls on Kollwitzplatz have moved. In: morgenpost.de , January 7, 2012, accessed on April 3, 2013.
- ↑ Monika Arnold: Anton-Saefkow-Platz receives another piece of the mosaic ( memento from April 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on bezirke.morgenpost.de ; Retrieved November 21, 2012.
- ↑ Upgrading the Anton-Saefkow-Promenade , on www.stadtentwicklung; accessed on March 31, 2016.
- ^ Anton-Saefkow-Platz on www.stadtentwicklung; accessed on March 31, 2016.
- ↑ Berlin swimming pools: swimming pool at Anton-Saefkow-Platz
- ↑ Decision on the well . In: Lichtenberg-Hohenschönhausener , 4A / 2008, p. 4.
- ↑ The "armored cruiser" is being torn down. In: Berliner Zeitung , November 6, 2008, p. 28.
- ^ Information from the Senate Department for Urban Development on the new water features on Anton-Saefkow-Platz , with illustration and technical data, accessed on April 15, 2010.
- ^ Sylvia Brösicke-Istok, Gabriela Ivan, Romy Köcher, Hans Schlegel: Sculptures, monuments and fountains in the Lichtenberg district . Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein, September 1993, ISBN 3-89542-012-3
- ↑ Source: the sign on the pedestal of the tree monument
- ↑ Celebration anniversary at the Fennpfuhl . In: Berliner Woche , Lichtenberg Nord edition, September 12, 2012; P. 37
- ↑ Weekly market on Anton-Saefkow-Platz on kauperts.de, accessed on September 12, 2012
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 45.7 ″ N , 13 ° 28 ′ 18.4 ″ E