Ernst-Reuter-Platz

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B2B5 Ernst-Reuter-Platz
Coat of arms of Berlin.svg
Place in Berlin
Ernst-Reuter-Platz
Ernst-Reuter-Platz with Otto-Suhr-Allee , 2007
Basic data
place Berlin
District Charlottenburg
Created 18th century
Newly designed 1955
Hist. Names On the knee (until 1953)
Confluent streets
Strasse des 17. Juni ,
Marchstrasse ,
Otto-Suhr-Allee ,
Bismarckstrasse ,
Hardenbergstrasse
Buildings see → characteristics
use
User groups Pedestrians , cyclists , cars

The Ernst-Reuter-Platz (formerly the knee or at the knee ) is a transportation hub in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg ( Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf ). The square was named on October 3, 1953 in honor of the Governing Mayor Ernst Reuter, who died four days earlier .

location

The square is located on the major east-west axis of Berlin in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf , district of Charlottenburg. It is located in the area of ​​the Charlottenburg campus (science location: TU Berlin , University of the Arts , Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, etc.) and in the area of City West .

Five streets lead to the big roundabout :

The U2 line of the Berlin subway with Ernst-Reuter-Platz station runs under the square .

The central island of the roundabout is landscaped with benches, trees, flower beds and a fountain . It can be reached underground via the subway station. Most visitors to the center of the roundabout, which is bypassed by traffic, take the short route across the lanes.

History of the place

Location of the knee in the Pharus Plan Berlin from 1902
Aerial view looking west (1895): The wide, tree-lined Berliner Straße runs from the middle edge of the picture to the top right over the characteristic knee from which Marchstraße leads to the Landwehr Canal (far right). Straight ahead from the knee to the top left is Bismarckstrasse, which was not yet developed at the time .
View around 1900 from the knee to the southeast of the building between Kurfürsten-Allee (left, from 1950 Hertzallee ) and Hardenbergstraße (right). In the 1920s, the high-rise at the Knie was built there, and after its destruction in the war from 1954 to 1959, the Faculty of Mining and Metallurgy of the TU Berlin . In the course of the re-planning of the square, the junction with Hertzallee was omitted.

Between the Berlin City Palace and the Charlottenburg Palace , located just outside the city, there was a road over the Charlottenburger Chaussee (since 1953: Strasse des 17. Juni ) and - from the city limits of Charlottenburg on the Landwehr Canal  - the former Berliner Strasse . This bent at Ernst-Reuter-Platz to the northwest into Otto-Suhr-Allee . The kink was initially called Umschweif and from 1831 Am Knie .

On June 22, 1865, the first German horse-drawn tram went into operation, leading from the Brandenburg Gate via Charlottenburger Chaussee , Berliner Straße / Knie to Charlottenburg. Around 1900 the knee was the intersection of several lines of the Berlin tram , including to the Zoologischer Garten station , to Alt-Moabit and to Sophie-Charlotte-Platz . In December 1902, the knee station of the elevated railway company (today: U-Bahn Berlin ) opened under the square .

At that time there were six streets off the square. However, the traffic flowed mainly to the northwest towards Spandau and to Siemensstadt, which is currently under construction . From 1905 - as an extension of Charlottenburger Chaussee / Berliner Straße - the then still narrow Bismarckstraße was supposed to create a connection to the west and to be expanded into a boulevard and parade path. For this purpose, a wide aisle was cut over more than ten kilometers through the newly built districts; the model was the boulevards (more precisely: avenues ) of Paris .

As part of Albert Speer's plans for the “ World Capital Germania ”, the character of the square was significantly changed as part of the new east-west axis . Reich Treasurer Franz Xaver Schwarz bought the Grand Hotel am Knie (Bismarckstrasse 1) on the square in 1939 and had it converted. During the Second World War , from 1941 until it was destroyed by an air raid on November 22, 1943, the Rosenberg office was located there . The ruins around the square were cleared after the war by rubble women and the use of rubble railways.

The section of Berliner Straße leading from the knee to the east was named Straße des 17. Juni on June 22, 1953 , the square itself was named after Ernst Reuter on October 3, 1953 and the street leading to the northwest was renamed on September 3, 1957 Otto-Suhr-Allee .

The extent of Ernst-Reuter-Platz (as of the beginning of the 21st century) was laid out particularly generously as a result of the Nazi plans for the world capital, making it one of the largest squares in Western Europe at the time. The Berlin Senate had it redesigned after the rubble had been removed; it should look light and carefree. The buildings that are used in the 21st century by faculties of the Technical University of Berlin and companies such as Deutsche Telekom and Teles AG were built from the mid-1950s to the 1970s . In the 1960s, the square often served as a showcase for New Berlin .

Characteristics

View over the square in the evening from Straße des 17. Juni to the northwest: on the left the Telefunken high-rise , on the right at the junction with Otto-Suhr-Allee the Osram-Haus , behind it a Deutsche Bank building

Due to strong war damage was a 1955 urban competition awarded . Little is known about its exact background. Dagmar Gausmann provided the most in-depth research, according to which, in addition to the winning project by Bernhard Hermkes , another model by Willy Kreuer found its way into the actual design.

The Ernst-Reuter-Platz with a clear width between 180 and 230 meters and a surrounding high-rise building in a loose construction is characterized by a roundabout with a designed green central island, into which the tracks of the tram were initially integrated, which crossed the square until 1967 wrong. Along with the Hansaviertel, it is considered to be one of the most striking examples of post-war modernist urban development in what was then West Berlin , in particular the postulate of the “ car-friendly city ”, and as a counterpoint to the more closed Strausberger Platz in East Berlin .

The originally acute-angled connections of Otto-Suhr-Allee, Hardenbergstraße and Marchstraße were swiveled so that they entered the circular path at right angles. The Hertzallee (formerly: Kurfürsten-Allee ) disrupted the concept and was cordoned off by the Institute for Mining and Metallurgy of the TU Berlin of TU Berlin professor Willy Kreuer , which was built from 1955 to 1959 as the first building on the newly created square the leading section was de- dedicated to Fasanenstrasse . The TU high-rise (Ernst-Reuter-Platz No. 1) forced Hermkes, who was in a feud with Kreuer, to coordinate his plans accordingly. All other buildings sprung up in the 1970s by Hermkes' urban requirements and are since the 1980s, along with the center island under monument protection .

Other significant solitary buildings include the Osram House (No. 8) built by Bernhard Hermkes in 1956/1957 , the Telefunken high-rise (No. 7, 1958–1960, Technical University / Telecom ) by Schwebes &  Schoszberger , and the IBM House (No. 2, 1960–1962) by Rolf Gutbrod , the Pepper House (No. 9/10, 1960–1963, Gravis - flagship store and SRH University ; Karl Heinz Pepper was the owner of the Europa-Center ) by Sobotka &  Müller , the building of the architecture faculty of the TU (Straße des 17. Juni, No. 150–152, 1966–68) by Hermkes with an extension by Hans Scharoun (1970), the office building (No. 6, 1969–1974) by Bernhard Binder and finally the Raiffeisenhaus (No. 3–5, 1971–1974, since then Signal Iduna management ) from Risse und Geber . The arrangement followed Hermke's concept of developing a free and non-closed form of space, the arrangement of which can be experienced in particular as movement from the moving car.

View from the Telefunken skyscraper over Ernst-Reuter-Platz to Hardenbergstrasse (on the left the Institute for Mining and Metallurgy of the TU Berlin), April 1960, photo by Willy Pragher

A memorial by the sculptor Bernhard Heiliger for Ernst Reuter , which today stands in front of the extension of the TU architectural building, was created in 1962–1963 with the title Die Flamme. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Ernst Reuter's death in 2003, 16 spotlights were installed in the square to illuminate the treetops in the dark. Edzard Reuter was present at the inauguration .

Fountain system

Fountain system on Ernst-Reuter-Platz

When the square was named, the district office had a fountain system installed in its center , which was already included in Hermkes' architectural drafts. Werner Düttmann carried out detailed planning . The facility has two rectangular concrete pools, the one to the west of the square is almost square with a side length of 19 meters, the eastern one is 30 meters wide and 40 meters long.

More than 20 water fountains one to two meters high bubble in each basin. They come from rotating metal plates, so that the jets of water dance around each other. In the larger basin, the water from a group of fountains rises up to eight meters from five individual nozzles. In the early 1990s, the district office turned off the water from the wells. The pools were unclean, the parts of the pump system were ailing. The entire green area was no longer maintained - "no money in the till" was the succinct explanation. The owner of a pension in Bleibtreustraße , Isolde Josipovici, did not want to accept this situation and managed to contact Edzard Reuter . In the 1990s, he was a member of the Board of Management of Daimler-Benz AG, and at the same time the one who had given his father's naming rights to the square. By threatening to withdraw the naming rights, Reuter reached the then Governing Mayor of Berlin, Eberhard Diepgen , that the then Charlottenburg district received the money to renovate the entire square including the fountain system. Berliner Wasserbetriebe also contributed to the renovation costs . The pension landlady also managed to get Wall AG to assume the operating costs of the fountains since then (status: 2014). Isolde Josipovici, who had to close her hostel in the summer of 2014 due to falling demand, will be remembered by residents around Ernst-Reuter-Platz as the well-rescuer.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ernst-Reuter-Platz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Petra Ahne: A while from the world. In: Berliner Zeitung , July 23, 2014, p. 3.
  2. ↑ Reinhard Bollmus: The office of Rosenberg and its opponents. Studies on the power struggle in the National Socialist system of rule . Stuttgart 1970, pp. 252 and 265.
  3. ↑ Ernst-Reuter-Platz . "Landscape architecture today" portal from the bdla , accessed on March 25, 2014.
  4. ↑ Berlin Sculpture: The Flame 1962/63. Bernhard Heiliger Foundation, accessed on August 19, 2018.
  5. ↑ Lights for Ernst-Reuter-Platz . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 25, 2003.
  6. ^ Fountain on Ernst-Reuter-Platz. From: stadtentwicklung.berlin.de , accessed on July 24, 2014.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 46 ″  N , 13 ° 19 ′ 18 ″  E