House of the Berlin publishing house

House of the Berlin publishing house
Basic data
Place:	Berlin-Mitte ,
Construction time :	1970-1973
Architectural style :	Modern
Architect :	Karl-Ernst Swora , Rainer Hanslik, Günter Derdau
Use / legal
Usage :	office building
Technical specifications
Floors :	17th
Building material :	Reinforced concrete , steel , facade made of glass
address
City:	Berlin ; Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 29
Country:	Germany

The house of the Berlin publishing house , during the construction period also the house of the Berlin publishing houses for a short time , after the political change sometimes also called Pressehaus Gruner & Jahr , is a building at Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 29 in the Berlin district of Mitte north of Alexanderplatz from the time of the GDR . Until 2017 it was the seat of the Berliner Verlag , to which the Berliner Zeitung and the Berliner Kurier belonged. The press café was housed in the upstream low-rise building during the GDR era . The frieze Die Presse as the organizer of the painter Willi Neubert is located on the low-rise building , which (as of January 2020) is hidden by the neon sign of the restaurant that is now located here.

The building has been a listed building since 2015 . Currently (2020) the building is being prepared for use as the headquarters of various companies.

History 1964–1990

After the completion of the Axel Springer high-rise in West Berlin , the construction of new publishing buildings in East Berlin was accelerated. The Neues Deutschland publishing house on Franz-Mehring-Platz and the Berlin publishing house were built almost at the same time .

Hans Modrow reported that Walter Ulbricht had campaigned massively for the construction of the publishing house near Alexanderplatz. Ulbricht wanted a house in this central square that would be used continuously. The publisher's offices, which were also illuminated in the evening, were supposed to illuminate the square and convey a busy atmosphere in the most central square in East Berlin.

The building ensemble of the Berlin publishing house was planned by the architects Karl-Ernst Swora , Rainer Hanslik , Gerhard Voss , Waldemar Seifert and Günter Derdau and was built between 1970 and 1973 by VE BMK Ingenieurhochbau Berlin. For the construction of the building 60.5 million marks of the GDR were estimated. After full occupancy there were 1000 jobs in the main building.

The dimensions of the house of the Berliner Verlag were determined by the plans of the 1964 competition organized by the East Berlin magistrate for the redesign of Alexanderplatz . A whole series of buildings such as the Interhotel Stadt Berlin , the House of the Electrical Industry , the House of Statistics , the House of the Teacher or the House of Travel were built in the period that followed. Large wall friezes were also used here as a design element. So on the house of the teacher the frieze Our Life and on the house of travel the frieze Man overcomes time and space (both by Walter Womacka ). According to the architecture critic Bruno Flierl , the friezes were coordinated with one another and had the task of “presenting the user institutions of the building as well as presenting their function in society”. The urban planning idea of the arrangement of the friezes was to represent a “complex idea of socialism” in the cityscape.

Development 1990–2016

While the Senate Building Administration under Senate Building Director Hans Stimmann, with its inner city plan, was critical of the buildings from GDR times in the first few years after reunification, in the 21st century the voices for the preservation of the buildings are increasing. The buildings are now valued and recognized as part of Berlin and German history. Senate Building Director Regula Lüscher explained : “The now listed buildings are evidence of artistic, urban and historical significance. With the protection we also want to open the view for the numerous qualities of recent history and especially to contrast the structural witnesses of the double Berlin in the former east and west of the city. "

Like a number of other GDR buildings, the house of the Berlin publishing house was to be demolished according to Hans Kollhoff's controversial master plan Alexanderplatz from 1993. The publishing house Gruner + Jahr wanted to build a skyscraper here based on a design by the architect Christoph Ingenhoven . The Senate Building Commission decided against the new building, so that the building management had the house renovated for 40 million marks . Due to the simplification of the facade, the much simpler and more cost-effective neon advertising and the covering of the wall frieze, the resulting external appearance is less demanding than in GDR times.

Development after 2016

In autumn 2016, with the exception of the press café, Bertelsmann sold the building to the new owner Tishman Speyer . The Berlin publishing house moved into the Feratti building on Spittelmarkt in 2017 . The other companies that resided in the building until the renovation included a. airliners.de and Flixbus .

When the newspaper editors and the later temporary users moved out of the building, the new owner Tishman Speyer commissioned a complete renovation, which began in 2017. In addition to the renovation, a low-rise building that does not belong to the monument protection is to be demolished in the rear area and replaced by a higher office building.

In September 2018, the building management presented concrete plans to the building committee of the Senate for a reconstruction of the original facade design in connection with renovation measures inside. The plans come from the architects Gerkan, Marg und Partner (GMP), who plan to rework the original white aluminum cladding. The Senate signaled general approval. Tishman Speyer has already signed rental contracts with the online furniture retailer Wayfair , which plans to rent eight floors, and with the media group Naspers , which will occupy seven floors.

Building description

main building

The high-rise has 17 storeys and was built using a steel frame construction. The length of the building is 150 meters, 92 meters of which is on the north-west side of Alexanderplatz; the depth 15 meters. Initially, the building had a front with a rhythmically cantilevered facade made of white aluminum panels. The original impression of this facade can only be guessed at (status: summer 2018). The facade was significantly simplified during a renovation in the post-reunification period . Based on the historical model, it is to be rebuilt by 2019.

Escape stairs

Fire escape of the building with billboards for various press releases from the publisher

The building's exposed, glazed fire escape is particularly striking . Her were billboards and signs attached with various titles of Berliner Verlag. The writing of the Berliner Verlag is mounted on a rotating cylinder at the top. After the political change , the billboards of the discontinued titles were replaced by billboards from four magazines and newspapers that were current at the time. The advertising boards and signets from the GDR era were originally designed with a significantly higher cost than the signets and signs that were created after German reunification . This is primarily due to the fact that in the GDR, the neon signs of craft businesses were much more elaborate than the later industrially produced advertising banners. The facade redesign plans provide for the replacement of the billboards with LED strips for changing advertisements; however, they should only allow references to the new tenants of the house.

Low-rise press café and frieze

The press café is a two-storey building that is pulled forward in relation to the building line and consists of a steel structure. During the GDR era, the house was a popular meeting place for journalists and correspondents. Various press publications from different countries could be viewed here, which were otherwise hardly available in the GDR. The gastronomic offer and the equipment were above average for GDR standards. The café was furnished with shell chairs of the Hockender Mann type by the West German designer Ernst Moeckl . The chairs were manufactured by the VEB Petrochemisches Kombinat Schwedt and are considered design classics.

Wall frieze Die Presse as Organizer , 1977

A frieze titled Die Presse as Organizer by the painter Willi Neubert adorns the facade of the press café . The 76 meter long and 3.50 meter high frieze, attached to the first floor in 1970, has been covered up since the late 1990s by advertising for a restaurant located in the building. The industrial enamel frieze consists of plates measuring 53 cm × 53 cm. For Neubert this was the second work for a press house, he had already done a frieze for the printing house of the daily newspaper Freiheit in Halle . Various experiments had taken place beforehand to ensure the durability and artistic expression of the pictures. Ulrich Kuhirt praised the work because it "has a major impact on the aesthetic effect of the large space of the new Berlin center". The frieze was controversial in GDR times. It was criticized that Karl Marx was not presented favorably. The concealed frieze is to be exposed again when the facade is redesigned.

Originally, a ceiling frieze by Willi Neubert with the name Aufbruch ins Universum was to be realized in the interior of the café . However, this was not done for reasons not known. A 1: 2 copy of the design for this frieze has been on view in the Thale Hüttenmuseum since the beginning of the 21st century .

The press café logo has been retained on the low-rise building . A planned removal of the lettering was prohibited by the monument protection authority.

Low building in the rear area

The low-rise building in the rear area housed a studio, a photo laboratory, the ad reception and a conference room on the upper floor.

Others

The house was used several times for outdoor advertising . Large advertising posters were attached to the facade. The sporting goods manufacturer Adidas was awarded the Gold Plakadiva prize for the best outdoor advertising of the year by the Fachverband Außenwerbung (FAW) during the soccer World Cup 2014 at the house of the Berliner Verlag .

literature

Anne Holper, Matthias Käther: GDR architectural monuments in Berlin , Berlin, VIA Reise Verlag, 2003, p. 15, ISBN 3-935029-09-8 .

Joachim Schulz, Werner Graves: Berlin. Architecture from Pankow to Köpenick , 1st ed., Berlino, VEB Verlag für Bauwesen, 1987, p. 55, ISBN 3-345-00145-4 .

Joachim Näther: The general development plan and the city center in German architecture (1968) 6, pp. 338–343.

Joachim Näther: Urban development for life - Berlin, Alexanderplatz in German architecture (1971) 6, pp. 343–348.

Karl-Ernst Swora: publishing house of the Berliner Verlag , Liebknecht-Strasse in German Architecture (1970) 5, pp. 279–283.

Heinz Graffunder: The capital of the GDR changes its face in German architecture (1969) 9, pp. 518-525.

Berlin, Architekturführer , Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2003, p. 159.

Architekturführer DDR, Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic , Berlin 1974, Architekturführer Ost-Berlin, p. 257.

Wörner, Mollenschott, Hüter: Architekturführer Berlin , 6th edition Berlin 2001, Alexanderplatz - A place of German history , Berlin 1980; Nils Aschenbeck, Clemens Niedenthal: Skyscrapers Berlin Mitte and other buildings of the GDR Modernism , Delmenhorst and Berlin 2, p. 48.

Bauakademie der DDR (Ed.): Architecture in the GDR , Berlin 1980, p. 51.

Berlin, architecture in the capital , Leipzig 1973, Anette Holper, Matthias Käther: GDR architectural monuments in Berlin, East Berlin rediscovered , Berlin 2003, p. 15.

Experienced building, East Berlin 1959 to 1989 , photographs by Gisela Stappenbeck, Berlin 2008, pp. 47, 53, 63.

Roland Korn, Klaus Weise: Berlin, buildings of our day . Berlin 1985, p. 46.

Ulrich Kuhirt: Willi Neubert, Maler und Werk , Dresden 1973, p. 27.

E. Neumann, Ulrich Kuhirt: Art and architecture, building-related art in the GDR , Leipzig 1974, project group "Art in architecture": pictures on walls in Berlin , Berlin 1994, pp. 42, 43.

Waltraud Volk: Berlin capital of the GDR, historic streets and squares today , 7th edition Berlin 1980, p. 217.

Klaus Weise: Wohin in Berlin, capital of the GDR , Berlin 1977, VII art exhibition of the GDR, Dresden, catalog for the exhibition from October 5, 1972 to March 25, 1973, Dresden 1972, p. 12.

Gerhard Stelzer: Art in Architecture , Leipzig 1969, p. 238.

Web links

Presentation of the building on www.emporis.com

Berlin publishing house . In: District lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein

Haus der Berliner Verlage on the website of the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment

Individual evidence

^ Jochen Knoblach: New owner: Pressehaus am Alex sold to New Yorkers . In: Berliner Zeitung . ( berliner-zeitung.de [accessed on July 16, 2017]).

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Ulrich Paul: New facade based on the old model . In: Berliner Zeitung (print edition: September 11, 2018, p. 10), Former house of the Berliner Verlag gets a new facade (online edition, September 10, 2018) .

↑ Hildburg Bruns: Monument! Alexanderplatz is now protected . In: Berliner Zeitung . July 11, 2015.

^ Hans Modrow , Hans-Dieter Schütt : I wanted a new Germany , Econ Verlag 1999, ISBN 978-3-612-26597-5 , p. 143.

↑ ^a ^b Press release Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment

↑ To this: VEB Verlag für Bauwesen: Bauplanung-Bautechnik, Volume 23 (1969) , p. 494.

^ ^A ^b ^c Joachim Schulz, Werner Gräbner: Berlin. Capital of the DDR. Architecture guide GDR. VEB Verlag für Bauwesen, Berlin 1974; P. 51.

^ Thomas Topfstedt: Urban development in the GDR 1955–1971 EA Seemann Verlag, Berlin 1988, p. 76.

^ Gernot Jochheim : The Berlin Alexanderplatz. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-86153-391-X , p. 184.

↑ Bruno Flierl : Political murals and monuments in urban space In: Gebaute DDR - About urban planners, architects and power. Verlag für Bauwesen, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-345-00655-3 , p. 96.

↑ Ralf Schönball: Berlin wants to put GDR buildings on the Alex under monument protection . In: Der Tagesspiegel . August 13, 2013.

↑ Wolfgang Kil : Founder's Paradise: On Building in Times of Transition Verlag für Bauwesen Berlin, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-345-00747-9 , p. 42.

↑ Bruno Flierl: Berlin is rebuilding - Whose will the city be. Verlag für Bauwesen Berlin, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-345-00654-5 , p. 134.

^ Karin Lenhart: Berlin Metropoly . Leske + Budrich Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8100-3026-0 , p. 240.

↑ Isabell Jürgens: Americans buy the house of the Berlin publishing house . ( Morgenpost.de [accessed on July 17, 2017]).