Motorway overbuilding in Schlangenbader Strasse

Side view of the motorway development

The Autobahn development Schlangenbader Strasse ( colloquially known as the Schlange ) is a residential complex on a freeway route with the architecture of the 1970s in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf on the edge of the Rheingauviertel . The building has been a listed building since December 2017 .

history

Map of the area surrounding the motorway development (marked in red and labeled A 104 )

South highway entrance into the tunnel through the house

The residential buildings on Schlangenbader Strasse

Hallway in the 'queue'

In the early to mid-1970s, the housing situation in West Berlin , which was now isolated by the construction of the Wall , was still critical. The large settlements on the outskirts (including Märkisches Viertel and Gropiusstadt ), which had previously been built on the model of satellite towns , had indeed reduced the general shortage of housing, but the planning always saw the creation of more compact living space as necessary, especially since various old building districts were demolished in the 1960s . Since the first socio-structural problems were already emerging in Berlin's large housing estates, the high-density housing construction of this model had already moved into the background.

Construction phases

In 1970/1971, the first construction work on the southern branch ( A 104 ) of the city motorway A 100 began . On an area of around 44,000 m², which overlaps the Autobahn 104 in the western part, the construction of the Schlangenbader Strasse motorway has now been planned. Initially, the project operated under the name Wohnpark Wilmersdorf .

Today's autobahn development encloses the autobahn 104 over a length of 600 meters in its north-south course and runs at a slight angle, analogous to the carriageway. The construction of the entire project took place between 1976 and 1980 on behalf of degewo . The planning was carried out by the architects Georg Heinrichs , Gerhard Krebs and Klaus Krebs. The construction was carried out by several companies in a joint venture . The companies Burgert-Neue Bauhütte AG, Ed. Züblin AG , Schälerbau Berlin, Bruno Ansorge, Lindow & Co, Richter & Skull, Sager & Woerner (SAWOE) , Anton Schmittlein AG, Gottlieb Tesch GmbH, Karl Tobias GmbH, FC Trapp and Wiemer & Trachte .

After completion, the ground subsided in the area of the superstructure, which had to be compensated for by subsequent compaction of the ground and steel wedges above the girder bridges. The total construction costs amounted to 400 million marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 440 million euros).

Scope of the system

The main building, the direct motorway overhang in Schlangenbader Strasse, has a total length of 600 meters and a maximum height of 46 meters. In the middle blocks it has a maximum number of storeys of 14. This building contains 1064 residential units and is therefore one of the largest continuous residential complexes in Europe. A further 694 residential units are housed in the adjacent perimeter development, which results in a total of 1758 residential units on the site. 120 different floor plans were realized.

In addition, 118 hobby rooms, four guest apartments and twelve common rooms as well as various bicycle and pram rooms are housed in the development. Playgrounds and dog toilets have been created on the site. A viewing terrace on the 13th floor was closed again for safety reasons due to previous climbing activities. 28 commercial spaces with a total of 7210 m² were integrated into the project.

There are two underground parking decks with 760 parking spaces (606 garages, 154 open parking spaces) below the motorway route below the building . A separate parking garage with 437 additional spaces was built.

The system had a central pneumatic waste disposal system from the Swedish manufacturer Envac with around 800 meters of piping; this was shut down at the end of 2015. The heating and the energy supply for the central hot water preparation are provided by district heating from the Wilmersdorf thermal power station .

The first apartments were ready for occupancy in 1980, but for organizational reasons the first occupancy extended until 1981, as there was a limit of 40 occupations on the 1st and 15th of each month.

criticism

The project was controversial both in advance and afterwards. A quote from the then Governing Mayor of Berlin Richard von Weizsäcker read:

"If the devil wants to do something bad to this city, he will have something like the 'snake' built again."

The residential units were built as part of social housing . At the end of the 1980s there was a deterioration in the residential environment of the complex (among other things due to crime and increasing pollution), but this was compensated by intensive investments in security technology and personnel ( security guards ) in the 1990s. Between 1998 and 2000, investments of the equivalent of over 6.6 million euros were made within this framework .

In 2002, the entire work was awarded the Renault Traffic Design Award for progressive traffic architecture in the 'Historic Award' category.