Axel Springer high-rise

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The Axel Springer House in Berlin

The Axel Springer high-rise is a publishing house in Berlin and belongs to the media group of Axel Springer SE . It is located at the intersection of Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse and Axel-Springer-Strasse in the Kreuzberg district , on the site of the Scherlhaus, which was destroyed in the war.

history

Between 1959 and 1965, the gold-colored part of the building transversely to Kochstrasse (today: Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse) was built according to plans by the architects Melchiorre Bega and Gino Franzi from Milan and Franz Heinrich Sobotka and Gustav Müller from Berlin, the first wing of today's house. For this purpose, the ruins of the Jerusalem church located there were blown up on March 9, 1961 . Springer placed his publishing house in the middle of the south section of Jerusalemer Straße , which had been devoted to this purpose, and described this as a symbolic act. The street An der Jerusalemer Kirche was also removed in the course of construction in 1963. The wall was built during the construction phase . In 1961, with the knowledge of the publisher, the construction site was the starting point for the escape tunnel of Rudolf Müller and other escape helpers.

In a speech to his employees at the new newspaper house, Axel Springer said on November 28, 1964:

Memorial plaque with Springer's saying
View from the direction of Potsdamer Platz
View of the building from the East Berlin area

"[...] that when we go to Kochstrasse, we don't just go to a new, beautiful, large building - not just to the historic newspaper district of Berlin: we're also going a route to Germany on Kochstrasse, if that's what that means that it is not worth building tall houses for newspapers in this world unless you have an idea that is bigger than we are all ourselves.
An idea that means: Freedom for all Germans in a fatherland with the legitimate capital Berlin and in the middle of a peaceful Europe! "

- Axel Springer

On October 6, 1966, he inaugurated the 19-storey and 78-meter high-rise building. The conservative Axel Springer defied numerous critics with the construction of the house in the immediate vicinity of the sector boundary . It was just a “scream against the wind”, said Springer at the time.

From 1968, the Leipziger Strasse complex was built across the sector boundary in what was then East Berlin . In the Berlin vernacular there is also the name "Springerdecker" for these particularly tall buildings, as it was assumed that they were built, among other things, to display the large advertisements for the Springer publications Bild , Berliner Morgenpost , Hörzu and BZ on the roof of the nearby Axel skyscraper -Springer-Verlag to cover up. However, there is no evidence for this view. Joachim Näther, then chief architect of the GDR , denies this. Against the above Version also says that the four residential towers on the south side of Leipziger Straße are at a great distance from one another and the Springer high-rise can be seen clearly from the shopping promenade.

From 1980 for ten years in front of the Springer high-rise there was an ensemble in the style of West German distance signs and unveiled by Axel Springer, which indicated the city names Danzig , Königsberg , Breslau and Stettin with distance information and large yellow arrows .

Between 1992 and 1994, the second wing of the high-rise building on Lindenstrasse was built , offset by 90 degrees (from 1996 here on Axel-Springer-Strasse), which dominates through its full-surface glazing. After the neighboring Springer publishing house's print shop had moved to a new hall in Spandau with more modern equipment, the print shop building - which was then a listed building and now unused - was demolished in July 2000 . In its place, the Axel-Springer-Passage was built as an eight-storey commercial building that was inaugurated in January 2004.

Conversation in the journalists' club

The Journalists Club is on the 19th floor , with original paneling from the London Times building . Visiting the club is a privilege reserved for guests of the editorial team and selected customers of the publisher. Prominent guests were the Dalai Lama , Mikhail Gorbachev , George Bush sen. and Billy Wilder .

The Axel Springer high-rise houses the editorial offices of the newspapers Die Welt and Welt am Sonntag along with the associated online editions and the nationwide editions of the Bild newspaper . Bild am Sonntag has also had its editorial team at this location since March 2008 . The Berliner Morgenpost was at home there too, but moved out on December 6, 2014 after the Funke Mediengruppe took over the regional newspapers from Springer Verlag and swapped rooms on Kurfürstendamm with the BZ editorial team .

There are numerous sculptures and monuments around the building, such as the sculpture Balanceakt by Stephan Balkenhol or the monument Fathers of Unity by the sculptor Serge Mangin . The Berlin taxi drivers gave Springer an oak tree on October 6, 1981 . The taxi drivers thanked Springer for making a commitment to Berlin with the new building during the Cold War . The tree stands on the south side of the building between the monument for the Jerusalem Church and Axel-Springer-Strasse and Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse. The inscription reads: “15 years of the Axel Springer House, Berlin taxi drivers planted this oak for you for your birthday.” West of the balancing act there has been a memorial plaque for Ronald Reagan since June 12, 2012 , the 25th anniversary of his famous Words in front of the Brandenburg Gate reminded: “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall . "

On the occasion of the Pope's visit to Germany in September 2011, both sides of the facade were covered with an oversized cover of the Bild newspaper from April 19, 2005. At that time, the tabloid headlined “Wir sind Pope!” As “an expression of collective joy, but also of the high expectations of the pontificate of the first German Pope in 500 years”. The two tarpaulins were each 45 meters × 64 meters and weighed 1235 kilograms each.

The Axel Springer high-rise is connected to the Axel Springer Passage via the Ullstein Hall .

New building 2016–2020

Axel Springer new building on July 1, 2019

In December 2013, a jury selected three designs from 18 designs for a new building at the historic site: Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) with Rem Koolhaas , Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) by architect Bjarke Ingels and Ole Scheeren . OMA emerged from the competition as the winner. The new building has been under construction since the beginning of 2016 and should be completed in 2020.

Web links

Commons : Axel Springer high-rise  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff: 50 Years of the Springer House - Even the Stasi fell victim to these myths. In: Welt.de. October 6, 2016, accessed May 3, 2020 .
  3. ↑ gbbb-berlin.com ( Memento of the original from June 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 1, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gbbb-berlin.com
  4. ^ A street is being dismembered Strolling in Berlin, accessed on August 17, 2012
  5. ↑ At the Jerusalem Church . In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein
  6. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : An escape tunnel on the publisher's construction site . In: Die Welt , May 25, 2009
  7. ↑ Sebastian Lehmann, Michael Sontheimer : The wrong caliber . In: Der Spiegel . No. 52 , 1998 ( online ).
  8. ↑ Sigrid Averesch: A border incident and the propaganda battle of the Cold War . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 15, 1998
  9. ↑ Felix Henseleit: ... and yet this is still the old scene. The Berlin newspaper district then and now. Special print for the friends of our company (Axel Springer Verlag). Ullstein, Berlin 1965.
  10. ↑ Collection of data and facts (PDF; 84 kB) on the sculpture “Balancing Act”, Axel Springer AG, May 25, 2009, accessed on October 8, 2011
  11. ↑ Box seat in contemporary history. Retrieved February 6, 2017 .
  12. ↑ preussische-allgemeine.de (PDF; 11.9 MB)
  13. ↑ preussische-allgemeine.de (PDF; 12.7 MB)
  14. ^ Berliner Morgenpost- Berlin: Where Berlin looks like London. December 1, 2013, accessed October 3, 2019 (German).
  15. ↑ Daniel Bouhs, Jürn Kruse: Free at last . In: taz.de . December 6, 2014. Accessed on December 15, 2015: “Exactly a year ago Erdmann moved out with his people. After 47 years, the Morgenpost went out of the Springer complex on the outskirts of Kreuzberg to the magnificent Kurfürstendamm (at least by Berlin standards) - to the former editorial offices of Springers BZ, which in turn took the opposite route and moved into the Kreuzberg high-rise. "
  16. ↑ K. Jahr-Weidauer: Call of the taxi driver: Bin on axis to Axel . In: Berliner Morgenpost , June 10, 2008
  17. ↑ Axel Springer honors Ronald Reagan . Axel Springer AG press release of June 12, 2012, accessed on September 1, 2012.
  18. ↑ BILD welcomes Pope Benedict XVI. in Germany: Axel Springer House in Berlin is covered with the title page “We are Pope!” . Press release by Axel Springer Verlag, September 15, 2011, accessed on September 23, 2011
  19. ↑ Redesigned Springer! In: FAZ , December 17, 2013, p. 29
  20. ^ Baustelle.strabag.com: Axel Springer new building in Berlin

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '27.1 "  N , 13 ° 23' 50.9"  E