Library at the Luisenbad

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Library at the Luisenbad
Library at the Luisenbad - vestibule

Entrance to the library

founding 1995
Library type District library
place Berlin-Gesundbrunnen Coordinates: 52 ° 33 ′ 12.3 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 45.5 ″  EWorld icon
ISIL DE-B788 (City Library Mitte, Library at Luisenbad)
operator Berlin-Mitte City Library
management Bodo Wolf
Website Library at the Luisenbad
Library at the Luisenbad - vestibule and coffee kitchen

The library at Luisenbad ( listen ? / I ) is a public library in the Berlin district of Berlin-Gesundbrunnen . The library has been located in the former Marienbad building, a bathing establishment right next to a healing spring, since 1995. Organizationally, the library is part of the Berlin-Mitte city library . Audio file / audio sample

history

Interior of the library with remains of the ballroom

The history of the property goes back to the year 1760, when a healing spring was discovered here and a bath was built around the spring. The name Luisenbad has been in use since 1809 .

The buildings of today's library were built as a center for entertainment and excursions in the then rural Gesundbrunnen. In 1874 the entrepreneur Ernst Gustav Otto Oscholinski founded Marienbad , a complex of swimming pool , restaurant , café and beer garden . In 1885 the building contractor Carl Galuschki bought the site and in 1888 had the "vestibule" built in front of the ballroom. The development of the site arose one after the other and in individual sections: whenever the existing site had generated enough money, it was invested in a further extension. Eventually they were used as a theater . At the end of the 19th century, the town and its buildings had grown up to Marienbad. Now a music café was built here and later a cinema . The actual bathing establishment was almost completely destroyed by the bombs of World War II in 1945 .

In the late 1970s, the residential buildings on the site directly on the street were to be renovated, and the former entertainment venues in the rear of the site were to be demolished. The demolition work had already started. Some buildings of the entertainment complex, including the cinema and the former large ballroom, were completely demolished in 1982, other parts had already been demolished by wrecking balls . It was only preserved through intervention and protests by local citizens' groups and monument conservationists .

The CDU parliamentary group in the Berlin House of Representatives pushed for its use as a library at the beginning of 1984. The architect Rebecca Chestnutt and the architect Robert Niess emerged victorious in a design competition in 1988, founded the joint architecture firm Chestnutt_Niess and set about implementing their ideas. From 1991 to 1995 the building was made structurally usable again. The library opened in November 1995. In 1996 the architects received the BDA Berlin recognition award / recognition for their renovation.

With the closure of the children's library on Schulstrasse and the relocation of the holdings to the library at Luisenbad, the library also received a large section for children at the end of the 2000s.

location

The library is located between Panke and Travemünder Straße and is part of the Gesundbrunnen Center Monument Complex . Located near the Bath Street , this is of small businesses, especially takeaways and amusement arcades and a Trinker- and drug scene marked. The library itself is a step away from Badstrasse in a green public space next to the Panke. Due to its relative isolation from the lively Badstrasse, it can be seen as a kind of oasis, but at the same time the library is easy to overlook due to its separation from the street scene.

building

Garden of the Luisen Library

The library consists of several buildings, some of which are conversions of the historical entertainment venues from the 19th century, while others are new buildings from the 1990s that were created for the library. The " Vestibül " and the " Comptoir " have been preserved historically , each equipped with a new building and connected underground. Contrary to initial plans, the two buildings are not connected by a bridge, but by new underground buildings, so that the historical passage between the two buildings was preserved.

The Z-shaped Comptoir is a formerly stand-alone extension that was originally built as a residential and administrative building. Similar to the vestibule, the facades are adorned with colored clinker bricks, which in the Comptoir are, however, arranged in geometric patterns of red, yellow and white.

The entrance area is on the ground floor of the vestibule. Most of the books are located on the underground floor, which is supplied with light through large skylights and daylight systems. The basement is accessible via a ramp. In Comptoir which is managing the library housed. A sculpture garden has been created around the vestibule, which is also used as a reading garden in summer.

Today, however, the library suffers from the scarce resources available to maintain the building. According to the architect, the outdoor area was not maintained once between 1995 and 2011. There were also problems with raining water, for example. The skylights were vandalized several times and are now protected by metal cages.

vestibule

The vestibule is the former entrance building of the cinema in Marienbad. The vestibule is a two-storey building built in 1888 in the neo-renaissance style . The entrance area is emphasized by a richly decorated gable wall . The interior of the building was painted in 1907. The Puttensaal on the first floor of the vestibule serves as the event room . A stucco ballroom set up in 1912/1913 in which two large pianos are installed. In 1905 the “coffee kitchen” was added to the vestibule. Back then it was an excursion destination to which Berliners could bring their own coffee. The house is strikingly decorated with colored bricks, as they were typical of Galushki's buildings. The inscription "KAFÉ-KÜCHE" made of clinker bricks is particularly striking.

Library room

Ramp with pictures of the WikiWedding exhibition 2018

The library is accessed via a curved ramp and an elevator. The ramp is intended to ensure that users come into the actual library area more slowly than with stairs and also more towards the front than looking at their feet. The ramp wall is often used for exhibitions. The devotional atmosphere of a scientific library should be avoided during construction. A reading room in the classic sense does not exist, but there are several separate areas in which reading can be done. Instead, the architects oriented themselves towards a large bookstore and wanted, for example, to create the conditions for a “certain noise level” so that the library appears more inviting and less intimidating. Part of the concept was also the creation of an entrance area in which the books are presented like in a bookstore. The focus on the building purpose is also striking in that numerous pieces of furniture are integrated into the building at the same time and, for example, individual shelves are also load-bearing elements of the building.

Web links

Commons : Marienbad (Berlin)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Landesdenkmalamt Berlin (Ed.): Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany . Monuments in Berlin. District middle districts Wedding and Gesundbrunnen. Imhof Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-937251-26-X , p. 123
  2. ↑ a b c Landesdenkmalamt Berlin (Ed.): Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany. Monuments in Berlin. District middle districts Wedding and Gesundbrunnen Imhof Verlag 2004, ISBN 3-937251-26-X , p. 121
  3. ↑ a b c d This need for place, for space, for dignity . (PDF) Preprint from: Petra Hauke; Klaus Ulrich Werner (Ed.): Second-hand - but excellent! Libraries build in stock . IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment Section. Bock + Herchen, Bad Honnef 2011, ISBN 978-3-88347-276-8 , p. 9
  4. ↑ a b c d e Library at Luisenbad , Berlin Chamber of Architects, 20 years of Architecture Day (PDF) ( Memento from February 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ A b c Library at the Luisenbad: To the story . berlin.de; accessed on February 5, 2016
  6. ^ A b Katherine Robinson: An everyday public? Placing public libraries in London and Berlin . (PDF) Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy; Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, September 2014, p. 39
  7. ↑ The CDU parliamentary group has introduced a motion . In: Interest Group Berlin Art Dealers e. V. (Ed.): Berliner Kunstblatt . No. 42 (April-June). Interest group of Berlin art dealers V., 1984, ISSN  0170-1665 , p. 3 .
  8. ↑ Chestnutt_Niess Architects. Profile overview. Always see things with new eyes. In: chestnutt-niess.de. Retrieved April 26, 2016 .
  9. ↑ This need for place, for space, for dignity . (PDF) Preprint from: Petra Hauke; Klaus Ulrich Werner (Ed.): Second-hand - but excellent! Libraries build in stock . IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment Section. Bock + Herchen, Bad Honnef 2011, ISBN 978-3-88347-276-8 , p. 31
  10. ↑ LDL Berlin Center Gesundbrunnen
  11. ^ Katherine Robinson: An everyday public? Placing public libraries in London and Berlin . (PDF) Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy; Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, September 2014, p. 38
  12. ^ A b Katherine Robinson: An everyday public? Placing public libraries in London and Berlin (PDF) Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy; Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, September 2014, p. 40
  13. ↑ This need for place, for space, for dignity . (PDF) Preprint from: Petra Hauke; Klaus Ulrich Werner (Ed.): Second-hand - but excellent! Libraries build in stock . IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment Section. Bock + Herchen, Bad Honnef 2011, ISBN 978-3-88347-276-8 , p. 17
  14. ↑ This need for place, for space, for dignity . (PDF) Preprint from: Petra Hauke; Klaus Ulrich Werner (Ed.): Second-hand - but excellent! Libraries build in stock . IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment Section. Bock + Herchen, Bad Honnef 2011, ISBN 978-3-88347-276-8 , p. 27