Elephant Gate (Berlin Zoological Garden)

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The Elephant Gate, 2017

The elephant gate is one of two main public entrances to the zoological garden in Berlin . It is at the Budapest street in the district of Tiergarten of the Mitte district, close to the Zoo-Aquarium . The 1983 built and 1984 in the East Asian style gate gets its name by two life-size lying elephant from sandstone that a pagoda roof made of red wood, gold ornaments carry and green glazed bricks. The reconstruction is based on the original building of the same name from 1899, which was destroyed during the Second World War. Today the gate is one of the landmarks of the zoological garden and is a listed building.

Original construction

Due to a changed traffic situation, the main entrance to the zoological garden was relocated towards the end of the 19th century. This was now at the cash desk on today's Budapester Strasse, where at that time only an old pheasant master's house was to be found. In order to make the temporary entrance area more attractive for visitors, the zoo administration announced a public competition in which 20 architects and architectural communities took part.

Original design for the main entrance by Zaar and Vahl ( Berliner Architekturwelt , 1898)

The design by architects Carl Zaar and Rudolf Vahl, who were already experienced with zoo buildings, prevailed. This envisaged a three- arched gate in the Japanese style, under whose middle high archway a large fountain was to be built. Two gatehouses with apartments, an additional administration building with additional apartments for zoo staff and a two-storey bicycle shed were to be connected directly to the building. These should also be built in the Japanese style with red wooden parts, green glazed tiles and curved roofs as well as gold-colored ornaments.

Postcard from 1912

Since the fountain would have taken up a lot of space, it was later discarded in favor of two larger than life, stone elephant sculptures that framed a heavy, wooden gate. The lying Indian elephants were made of sandstone and carried the oriental roof structure . A three-way lantern hung from the central archway. Although critics were outraged by the “foreign styles” of the design, the front of the Kurfürstendamm , which was then still running here , was faced with a closed front of modern apartment buildings, the portal and administrative complex was built in 1899. The stone elephants were made in 1898 by the Hanoverian sculptor Wilhelm Mues . The construction costs totaled 277,336  marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 1,902,000 euros). A watercolor of the construction project by Zaar and Vahl was shown at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900 . The elephant gate, located in the immediate vicinity of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church , was to develop into a landmark of the Berlin zoo in the following decades.

The adjacent farm yard was also adapted to the style of the elephant gate and the other administrative buildings during its renovation, which is why it was later to be referred to as the “Japanese Quarter”.

Destruction and rebuilding

The exterior of the complex remained unchanged for the next four decades, before the complex was destroyed by incendiary bombs during World War II in November 1943. In place of the elephant gate, two cuboid, rough-plastered ticket booths were built as a temporary measure, supplemented by Fritz Behn's granite sculpture of the gorilla Bobby and two stone lions made from Rüdersdorfer limestone by Paul Zoeller . The lion sculptures had previously formed the old lion portal opposite the Zoologischer Garten train station - the site had been given to the Senate , where Hardenbergplatz was being built.

A true-to-original reconstruction of the elephant gate could only be commissioned after the zoo director Heinz-Georg Klös had built or modernized the animal houses, enclosures and horticultural facilities in the early 1980s. Since the administration and the farm yard had been located elsewhere for a long time, a complete reconstruction of the entire complex was rejected. In addition to the elephant gate, only a few peripheral buildings should therefore be built in the romantic style , which should visually enhance the “sober” Budapest street. After the deliberations of the zoo administration had received a lively response, the construction was commissioned at the end of December 1982.

One of the two elephant figures reconstructed by Jochen Ihle , 2009

The design was created with the help of photos and old postcards by the zoo architects Schaefers and Löffler , who also took on the implementation planning. The sculptor Jochen Ihle was entrusted with the reconstruction of the sandstone elephants and the wood carving in the gate gable, while the architects Srp and Hafemann were in charge of construction. The Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin was responsible for all of the costs .

80 Pfennig - special stamp of the Bundespost Berlin (1986) with the elephant gate

The sandstone for the elephants, which each consist of 26 individual pieces with base and column parts, came from the Elbe Sandstone Mountains in Saxon Switzerland , from where the zoo had already received building materials for its animal enclosures from 1928 to 1940. The East German VEB Elbenaturstein in Dresden took over the delivery and processing of the sandstone . For this, a contract between West Berlin and the GDR had to be signed. The offers of the two largest West German stonemason companies would have far exceeded the financial possibilities. Since the awarding of a contract subsidized by the West Berlin Senate to a GDR state enterprise was not welcomed, Heinz-Georg Klös officially obtained permission from the then governing mayor Richard von Weizsäcker and later also from his successor Eberhard Diepgen .

A total of 175 tons (75 cubic meters) of Posta sandstone from the white bank of the Mühlleite open-cast stone mine near Lohmen were used. The old joint cut was used for monument preservation reasons, which is why each elephant was only allowed to consist of four blocks. The heaviest part weighed 15 tons as a raw block and was 1.65 meters long, 1.50 meters wide and 2.45 meters high. The middle part of the elephants was 2.70 meters high.

For the stonemasons, working sketches of the stone on a scale of 1: 1 were made, 53 cubic meters of the sandstones should have figurative jewelry, which was composed of 52 individual parts. Corresponding plaster models were made on a scale of 1: 3, so that the sculptors enlarged the models using the three-circle method . In order to give the elephant figures a natural look, the stonemasons visited the Dresden Zoo . So that there was no mix-up during assembly, each stone was given a corresponding signature. The elephants were then preassembled and all joints made to fit. The transport to West Berlin was carried out with the help of special vehicles by the employees of VEB Elbenaturstein .

On October 19, 1984, the topping-out ceremony for the elephant gate took place on schedule , attended by the then ruling mayor Eberhard Diepgen and other guests of honor. In contrast to the original gate from 1899, today's building stands almost freely in the room - the barriers are behind the elephant figures. In front of the gate there is a large square that continues to the aquarium entrance and its fountain ( Olof-Palme-Platz ). The space for this was gained by relocating Budapester Strasse. The construction of the two-story ticket office on the west side had already started shortly after the reopening of the zoo aquarium in 1983. When it was completed, it had a first aid station, three service apartments and a photo laboratory. The East Asian style of the elephant house was also used for the Asia enclosure and the zoo school in the immediate vicinity. In contrast to the original building, the zoom wall was adapted to the aquarium facade and decorated with rhinoceros reliefs by Jochen Ihle. The Berlin energy supply company Bewag donated a replica of the old three-way lantern. At night the complex around the elephant gate is illuminated. The cost of the elephant gate, the Asian enclosure and the zoo school totaled 10.2 million marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 9 million euros). The lion sculptures returned to Hardenbergplatz when the lion portal was reconstructed in 1987/1988.

Today the elephant gate is once again one of the landmarks of the Berlin Zoological Garden. Around two million visitors pass through the gate every year. In 1986 the Deutsche Bundespost Berlin and in 1994 the Deutsche Bundespost each issued a postage stamp showing the Elephant Gate.

See also

literature

  • Heinz-Georg Klös (Ed.): The Berlin Zoo as reflected in its buildings 1841–1989; a historical and monumental documentation about the Berlin Zoological Garden. Heenemann, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-87903-069-3 .

Web links

Commons : Elefantentor  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry in the Berlin State Monument List (accessed May 31, 2011).
  2. ↑ Heinz-Georg Klös (Ed.): The Berlin Zoo as reflected in its buildings 1841–1989. Heenemann, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-87903-069-3 , pp. 139-140.
  3. ^ Mues, Wilhelm . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 25 : Moehring – Olivié . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1931.
  4. ↑ Heinz-Georg Klös (Ed.): The Berlin Zoo as reflected in its buildings 1841–1989. Heenemann, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-87903-069-3 , p. 140.
  5. ↑ a b The lion portal. In: Klös, Heinz-Georg: Noah's Ark on the Spree: 150 years of the Berlin Zoological Garden. FAB-Verl., Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-927551-29-5 , pp. 316-317.
  6. ^ Annual report for 1982. In: Bongo. Volume 7, 1983, pp. 117-118.
  7. ↑ a b c Ewald Kay: The Elephant Gate and the Saxon Sandstone. In: Bongo. Volume 9, 1985, pp. 79-84.
  8. ↑ a b Beata Zarzycka: The elephant gate on Budapester Strasse in Tiergarten is… In: Die Welt , August 18, 2004, No. 192, p. 38.
  9. ↑ a b c The Elephant Gate . In: Heinz-Georg Klös: Noah's Ark on the Spree: 150 years of the Berlin Zoological Garden . FAB-Verl., Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-927551-29-5 , pp. 315-316.
  10. ^ Annual report for 1983. In: Bongo. Volume 8, 1984, p. 193.
  11. ^ Annual report for 1984. In: Bongo. Volume 9, 1985, pp. 181-190.
  12. ↑ Heinz-Georg Klös (Ed.): The Berlin Zoo as reflected in its buildings 1841–1989. Heenemann, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-87903-069-3 , p. 394.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 20.37 "  N , 13 ° 20 ′ 23.18"  E