Galeria Kaufhof Berlin-Alexanderplatz
The Galeria Kaufhof Berlin Alexanderplatz is a department store of Signa Holding on Alexanderplatz in Berlin district of Mitte .
history
At the site of today's Galeria Kaufhof , Hermann Tietz built a department store at the beginning of the 20th century. The building was badly damaged in World War II and later demolished. The current building was erected from 1967 to 1970 as the HO - Centrum department store . It was part of the development plan, which emerged as the best design from the 1964 architecture competition for the redesign of the square. The specific implementation was planned by the architects Josef Kaiser and Günter Kunert . Construction began in 1967 and the department store opened on November 25, 1970. When it opened, the department store had a sales area of 15,000 m² (1,900 m² of which was for food and beverages), making it the largest department store in the GDR .
The massive building cube measuring 78.60 meters by 80.70 meters in a square and 34 meters high had six floors. The end walls of the food and beverage department on the ground floor were adorned with colored mosaic walls based on designs by Dagmar Glaser-Lauermann.
After the political change , the building was taken over by Metro AG and, after a slight modernization, a branch of the Galeria Kaufhof was opened. The sales area was increased to 20,000 m². The Kaufhof at Alexanderplatz has since been one of the top-selling department stores in Germany.
As part of the implementation of the new plans for Alexanderplatz by Kollhoff and Timmermann, the department store was extensively modernized and expanded from June 2004 according to plans by the architect Josef Paul Kleihues . The floor plan was enlarged by moving the facade facing the square by around 25 meters towards the center of the square. The fourth and fifth floors of the building, which were previously used for a restaurant and administration, were completely added to the sales room. This increased the sales area from 20,000 to 35,000 m², and the building now houses one of the largest Kaufhof branches in Europe.
Kleihues replaced the characteristic honeycomb façade with 13,000 m² with a natural stone façade made of Gauinger travertine with large glass surfaces, which is stylistically based on the conservative forms of many Berlin buildings of the 1990s, such as Pariser and Leipziger Platz . A large atrium with a large glass dome was created in the middle of the building. 20 escalators, which are up to 24 meters in length, are among the longest self-supporting department store stairs in the world. In total, the measures cost the investor Metro Group Asset Management 110 million euros, of which the largest part (85 million euros) was used for property purchases. Kaufhof AG invested an additional 27 million euros in equipment and technology.
A special feature of the renovation was that it was carried out while sales were in progress and the department store was not closed for a single day due to construction. The sales areas were moved back and forth within the building depending on the construction progress. In this way, customers could experience “shopping on the construction site”. Nevertheless, on May 24, 2006 the “opening” of the department store was celebrated.
In June 2015, the German retail group Metro Group announced that it would sell its Kaufhof department store chain to the Hudson's Bay Company in September 2015 . The agreement According to the notification includes in Germany, especially among Galeria Kaufhof as well as in Belgium under Galeria Inno operating department store business, as well as the related real estate. The purchase price mentioned was 2.8 billion euros.
literature
- Josef Paul Kleihues : Galeria Kaufhof Berlin-Alexanderplatz . jovis Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-939633-25-9 .
- Architecture discussion in: Deutsche Bauzeitschrift (DBZ), 54th year 2006, issue 10, p. 20.
Web links
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 20.6 " N , 13 ° 24 ′ 41.4" E