Fehrbelliner Platz

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Fehrbelliner Platz
Coat of arms of Berlin.svg
Place in Berlin
Fehrbelliner Platz
Entrance building of the Fehrbelliner Platz underground station . In the background the former headquarters of Nordstern Insurance at Fehrbelliner Platz 2, today the seat of parts of the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing
Basic data
place Berlin
District Wilmersdorf
Created 1930s
Confluent streets
Hohenzollerndamm ,
Brandenburgische Strasse ,
Westfälische Strasse ,
Württembergische Strasse ,
Barstrasse
Buildings BfA building,
Fehrbelliner Platz train station ,
Nordstern building,
Wilmersdorf town hall
use
User groups Pedestrians , cyclists , road traffic , public transport

The Fehrbellinerplatz is a transportation hub in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf in the district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf . It is located at the intersection of Hohenzollerndamm and Brandenburgische Strasse. It was named after the Battle of Fehrbellin in 1675, in which the troops of the Great Elector forced the Swedish invasion force under their Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustav Wrangel to withdraw from the Margraviate of Brandenburg .

After the previously independent city of Wilmersdorf was incorporated into the city of Wilmersdorf through the formation of Greater Berlin, the comparatively low land prices compared to the center of Berlin made the conveniently located town square attractive for space-intensive new administrative buildings. The subway connection , which has existed since 1913, also enhanced the location.

Project planning

Fehrbelliner Platz, which was largely undeveloped until the 1920s, was designed as a large, horseshoe-shaped town square . Some administrative buildings had already been built some distance away when the city decided to curb the wild growth between the villa suburbs and the Wilhelminian style quarter . Against this background, a competition was announced in 1934 to “create one of the most beautiful and, in its uniformity, perhaps greatest places in Germany”. The winner was Otto Firle with his semicircle scheme, which apart from the road construction was largely implemented. The building on the edge of the square, which is visually related to each other due to the approximate eaves height , has the character of an ensemble and emphasizes the horseshoe shape of the square, which opens to the north towards the Prussian Park . The administration buildings at Fehrbelliner Platz 1–4 have typical features of National Socialist architecture .

buildings

Weimar Republic

The conception after the First World War already envisaged a horseshoe shape for the square, albeit with a much larger radius. From the previous decade there was also the never realized project to close the arch to the north (towards the Preußenpark) with a representative town hall for the then German Wilmersdorf .

The first building on this plan was built in the Weimar Republic between 1921 and 1923, the headquarters of the Reich Insurance Company for salaried employees, based on plans by G. Reuter. It has a rectangular floor plan and was initially grouped around two inner courtyards, but was later extended several times to the northwest. The administration building was hardly damaged in World War II . The Deutsche Rentenversicherung uses the address "Ruhrstraße 2" to this day. The side wings are on Ruhrstrasse and Westfälische Strasse . The main front lying in between formed the north-western side of the perimeter development of the "big horseshoe". A new building for the BfA from the 1970s in front of the old main front now adapts the square contour to the scaled-down horseshoe.

In 1931 the house for the German insurance group was built on the south side of the Hohenzollerndamm according to a design by the architect Emil Fahrenkamp . The round arch to Fehrbelliner Platz (today: Julius-Morgenroth-Platz ) still shows the originally intended size of the square. Initially, this arched wing and the wing were built on Brienner Straße, later expanded via Hohenzollerndamm 174–177 and Mansfelder Straße and the block closed. From 1935 it was used by the German Labor Front (DAF) as a "treasury". Another building for the DAF (Fehrbelliner Platz  4 , from 1954 to 2014 Wilmersdorf Town Hall ) later completed the circle segment on the now reduced square.

The residential building at the top between Ruhrstrasse and Hohenzollerndamm stood out in the cityscape because the upper floors had been converted into a Russian Orthodox church with onion domes. It was used by the emigrants displaced by the Russian Revolution , some of whom could still rely on large assets. In 1938, the Christ-Resurrection Cathedral was built in the immediate vicinity on Hoffmann-von-Fallersleben-Platz as a replacement .

With the three buildings mentioned, the large arch on the west side of the square had already been closed before 1933.

time of the nationalsocialism

At Fehrbelliner Platz 1, an administration building for Rudolf Karstadt AG was built in 1935/1936 on a diamond-shaped floor plan at the northeast corner of Hohenzollerndamm, based on a design by the architect Philipp Schaefer . Its facade, clad with natural stone slabs, is divided into groups of four windows. This complex originally continued eastward to Sächsische Strasse, but was partially destroyed in World War II. It is currently used by the Berlin State Administration Office.

Nordstern insurance at Fehrbelliner Platz 2 (by Otto Firle)

The former headquarters of Nordstern-Versicherung at Fehrbelliner Platz 2 now houses parts of the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing and was designed as a south-east segment of the perimeter development in the typical architectural style of the Nazi era . The concept for the project started in 1934 and completed in 1936 comes from Otto Firle . In the T-shaped steel frame building , the main entrance is arranged in the middle and is emphasized by a protruding canopy resting on two massive flagpoles. The facade clad with natural stone is structured by protruding window reveals , as is typical of the time .

On the other side of Brandenburgische Strasse at Fehrbelliner Platz 3, the former Reich grain depot designed by Ludwig Moshamer joins the construction of the Nordstern insurance . Moshamer based himself on the specifications of Firle, structured the building axially and placed the main entrance in the front of the square. On the other hand, the front side, clad with natural stone, with window reveals and cornices made of shell limestone, turned out to be a lot more elegant. The fronts facing away from the square, on the other hand, were merely plastered. The five-storey building, which was erected from 1935 to 1938, was to be connected to Nordstern-Versicherung by building over the Brandenburgische Strasse. Today federal authorities are housed here.

British mailbox at the former Wilmersdorf town hall

The last building to be completed during the Nazi era was the Fehrbelliner Platz 4 complex from 1941 to 1943 to expand the neighboring headquarters of the German Labor Front (DAF). From the end of the war until 1953 it was the headquarters of the British occupying forces as "Lancaster House" and then until 2014 Wilmersdorf town hall .

The architect Helmut Remmelmann produced the design in the neo-classical style. In contrast to the buildings erected at the same time on the square, the conventionally bricked structure has a plastered facade. The circular, column-lined courtyard is based on the police headquarters in Copenhagen, which was built between 1919 and 1924 . Together with the neighboring DAF building at Hohenzollerndamm 174 , which was built before 1933, it forms a large circle segment of the reduced contours of the square. For cost reasons, the building is to be vacated by the end of 2014 and handed over to the State of Berlin, giving up its use as a town hall. The future use has not yet been determined.

In addition to the buildings with the postal address Fehrbelliner Platz, the development continues in the same style: North of Fehrbelliner Platz 5 at the confluence of Westfälische Straße there is another building with colossal figures typical of the time on the facade above the entrance, 1936–1938 by the architect Herbert Richter built for the "DAF insurance ring".

The entire complex extends to Mansfelder , Sächsische and Pommersche Strasse .

After the Second World War

To the north of the Fehrbelliner Platz  1 building, the high-rise building for the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing, completed in 1955 by architects Werry Roth and Richard von Schuberth, is located on Württembergische Strasse.

The office building, which was built by architects Jan and Rolf Rave from 1970 to 1973 at Fehrbelliner Platz  5 for what was then the Federal Insurance Agency for Salaried Employees and is now used by Deutsche Rentenversicherung , was designed as a six-story, cubic building that was adjusted in height and proportions to the existing space. The facade is structured with exposed concrete corners and ribbon windows in between. A shopping arcade has been integrated into the ground floor and has been renovated since 2012.

The entrance pavilion of the Fehrbelliner Platz underground station, which was fundamentally rebuilt between 1968 and 1972 according to plans by the architect Rainer G. Rümmler, forms a deliberate contrast in design and color to the administrative buildings from the National Socialist era . In addition to its function as an entrance hall, the building also includes a bus stop, a kiosk and a restaurant. The clock tower with a traffic observation room, from which the complex owes its nickname "drilling platform", is particularly striking.

Buildings 1-4 on Westfälische Strasse and the underground station are listed buildings .

Transport hub

Fehrbelliner Platz is an important junction for both road and local public transport. The underground lines U3 (since 1913) and U7 (since 1971) intersect at the Fehrbelliner Platz underground station . The last tram line 3, which touched the square , was closed on August 1, 1964.

Sculpture group The Seven Swabians

Sculpture group
The Seven Swabians

Between the buildings at Fehrbelliner Platz 1 and 2, the sculptural group Die Sieben Schwaben by the sculptor Hans-Georg Damm, welded from sheet iron and galvanized, was erected in 1978 on the median of Hohenzollerndamm .

literature

  • Wolfgang Schächen : The Fehrbelliner Platz. Identity problems between the transport hub and the administrative center . In: Berlin in the past and present . 1990, ISSN  0175-8446 , p. 132-158 .
  • Harald Bodenschatz , Hans Stimmann : The Fehrbelliner Platz - fragments of a through the III. Richly scarred history . Ed .: Institute for Urban and Regional Planning of the TU Berlin in connection with the Kulturhaus Wilmersdorf e. V. 2nd edition. Berlin 1983.
  • Markus Sebastian Braun (Ed.): Berlin. The architecture guide . Quadriga, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-88679-355-9 .
  • Rolf Bothe (Ed.): Berlin in Painting from the 17th Century to the Present . Nicolai and Arenhövel, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-87584-212-X , p. 350 (exhibition in the Berlin Museum, September 19 – November 1, 1987).

Web links

Commons : Fehrbelliner Platz (Berlin-Wilmersdorf)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Wilmersdorf town hall retired . In: Berliner Zeitung , April 3, 2013

Coordinates: 52 ° 29'25.3 "  N , 13 ° 18'51.8"  E