Koppenplatz

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Koppenplatz
Coat of arms of Berlin.svg
Place in Berlin
Koppenplatz
Koppenplatz: Park and former school
Basic data
place Berlin
District center
Created Late 19th century
use
User groups Pedestrians , cyclists , cars
Space design Hermann Mächtig (19th century)
Erwin Barth (1927)
City district center (1950, 1980)
Green space office center (1991)
Technical specifications
Square area 3850 m²

The Koppenplatz is a green area in the historic suburb of Spandau in Berlin district of Mitte . It is bordered by Große Hamburger Straße , Linienstraße and Auguststraße . The square became known primarily because of the municipal poor cemetery, which was located here between 1704 and 1853 and of which only one grave monument to the namesake still exists today.

History of the Koppenplatz

The poor cemetery in the Scheunenviertel

The poor cemetery on a map from 1849

Koppenplatz has existed under this name since August 12, 1853 and was named after the Berlin city governor and councilor Christian Koppe . He had bought the area in 1696 and donated it in 1704 to the municipal poor administration of Berlin for the construction of a poor cemetery for the Spandau suburb, then known as the Scheunenviertel . The Koppesche Armenfriedhof itself was significantly larger than today's Koppenplatz. It was bounded in the east by the still existing Kleine Auguststraße and in the west the border ran diagonally along the current property boundaries of the Hollmannschen Wilhelminen-Amalien-Stiftung , the former 1st community school and a former technical and advanced training school, which is now at Linienstraße 162 lie a little off the Koppenplatz. In 1708, Koppe also had a poor house for women built on Auguststrasse (the former Hospitalstrasse ) at the point where today Große Hamburger Strasse leads to Koppenplatz (Auguststrasse 59). At the same time, the other parcels around the cemetery were sold and rental houses were built on. The cemetery was officially used until 1739 and Christian Koppe was also buried here after his death in 1721 at his own request. Furthermore, suicides who were not allowed to be buried in the city's mostly Christian cemeteries were buried here. The last burial on the square was probably in 1838.

The tower

Around 1800, a morgue and autopsy house was built at the cemetery on Linienstraße. This had a small tower on its roof, which earned it the nickname "The Tower". The corpses of penniless deceased, suicides and accident victims were brought to this house, who were transported here on wooden carts (nasal squeezing) from the Charité , which at that time served as a hospital and training institution for prospective military doctors . Here the dead were autopsied and then buried in the cemetery.

The tower and the poor cemetery found their way into literature through Karl Gutzkow's childhood memories . He wrote in his 1852 book From the Boyhood :

“Between the little tower and the anatomy, a rumbling, dull cart regularly went back and forth in the quiet evening darkness. They'll bring you another one! Said the father when the rolling of the horrible cart rang out under the window at around nine o'clock. "

- Karl Gutzkow: From the boyhood , 1852

Together with a friend, Gutzkow tried to get access to the "tower" in order to see corpses, but was turned away and instead sent to the poor cemetery:

“The boys shot like lightning at the large green field, which at the same time presented itself freely and widely behind a half-open door. Here in the tree-free and blossomless churchyard all sorts of laundry hung and linen was bleached. But on the right were the graves. Every now and then they were covered with thin scorched grass, but all nameless, without the shade of a tree, without the ornament of a flower. Poisoned, hanged, drowned all these victims of despair. An open pit awaited a newcomer [...] The boys could now have jumped over a wall into Linienstraße. "

- Karl Gutzkow: From the boyhood , 1852

The tower and the surrounding area were bought in 1844 by the municipal gas companies , who built a gasometer station here. With the abandonment of the cemetery and the demolition of the poor house, the same also had the tower torn down. The gasometer station stood here until 1904 and was then also demolished.

Abandonment of the cemetery, grave monument for Koppe and further development of the place

Monument above the grave of Christian Koppe

In 1853 the cemetery was closed and opened to public transport. In 1855, the Berlin architect Friedrich August Stüler erected a striking monument to the same above Christian Koppe's grave in the form of a small classical architecture with Corinthian columns , which on the one hand resembles a portico , on the other hand, due to its small size, evokes associations with a hereditary burial, as it is on the border walls old Berlin cemeteries can be found. There is a memorial inscription on the back wall built into the house. During the extensive restoration from 1998 to 2000, laser technology was used to clean the monument, which left the filigree details of the capitals and fluted columns intact. It stands in front of the facade of a new building on the sidewalk, still above the crypt in which Christian Koppe and several of his relatives were buried.

After the poor house was demolished in 1853, Große Hamburger Straße was extended in a straight line to Linienstraße, thus dividing the former cemetery grounds into two parts. In addition, a street was also laid parallel to Kleine Auguststraße between this and Große Hamburger Straße, so that today's Koppenplatz is between these two newly laid streets. The parcels on both sides and south of today's Koppenplatz were released for building.

Surroundings of the square

Residential houses are being built

Tenement house (Koppenplatz 6) from 1897

The apartment buildings on today's Koppenplatz were gradually built, most of which have been preserved to this day and are under monument protection. The first buildings were built on the corner of Große Hamburger Straße and date from 1852 (house number 1) and 1857 (number 2). The oldest surviving buildings on the east side were built in 1863 (nos. 7 and 8); This is followed by the extensively restored house number 9 with a richly structured facade from 1905. House number 6 was built in 1897 and, with its quotes from different stylistic epochs and the striking dwarf gable borrowed from the Renaissance , is a respectable representative of historicism - this building is also a listed building today. Since the restoration in 2000, a memorial plaque on the building commemorates the owner of the house, Ilse Goldschmidt, born by the National Socialists . Schindler.

Hollmannsche Wilhelminen-Amalien-Foundation

Hollmannschen Wilhelminen-Amalien-Stiftung building

The first building of the Hollmannschen Wilhelminen-Amalien-Stiftung was built around 1835, i.e. before the cemetery was closed. It was the current component on the corner of Linienstraße as an extension of the former Georgen Hospital. City councilor Hollmann had it built in memory of his wife as a retirement home for over 55-year-old Protestant widows and unmarried middle-class women who had lived in Berlin for at least 15 years. While the cemetery area was being converted and abandoned, the foundation building was successively expanded in two steps. In 1850 the five-storey, square tower was built on the corner of Linienstraße and Koppenplatz, and in 1869 the third part was built on today's Koppenplatz. Like the older wing on Linienstraße, this is three-story and has a special feature of an eaves cornice made of terracotta elements (painted over today), which have been popular since the first use by Karl Friedrich Schinkel in what was then Berlin because of their inexpensive production and their durability. The end of the complex is formed by another extension at Linienstraße 163/164 from 1873. The facade design of the entire building is purely classical and uniform enough that the various construction phases can hardly be noticed. The plastered facades are cautiously structured with plastered ashlars, cornices , a risalit , window frames and roofs and the corner building with flat pilasters in a colossal order. At the turn of the millennium, the facility was renovated for use as a senior citizens' home, the roofs were expanded and a modern component was added to the neighboring school building.

School building at the turn of the century

2010: School is back in operation

In the years 1902 to 1907, the first community school was built on the last vacant building site of lot number 12 at Koppenplatz , according to the plans of the city building officer Ludwig Hoffmann , which housed the Bertolt Brecht secondary school after 1950 . After the reunification , the 4th elementary school used the building complex. It consists of a main wing on the street and two side wings that surround the schoolyard. The school was built with a smooth plastered facade, the only sculptural decoration of which consists of the stone portal and four stone cartouches . The middle part of the main house with the central auditorium , which is now used as a theater, is a little higher and is emphasized by a hipped mansard roof with bat dormers and crowned with a turret . The latter is clad in copper sheets and contains the school clock, which points towards the square. 26 window axes with narrow, high windows structure the main facade partly by arrangement in pairs, partly by bundling in groups of five. While the distinctive roof shape and the sculptural decoration are based on the Baroque , the window arrangement structurally refers to the geometric Art Nouveau , which was modern at the time , which makes the building an idiosyncratic hybrid between historic and modern architecture. The building was extensively renovated in 2003 and, like the neighboring Hollmannsche Wilhelminen-Amalien-Stiftung, is listed as an individual monument.

After the school was abandoned at the end of the 20th century, the renovated building has been used as a theater rehearsal center since 2005 . Since September 2008, due to the very high density of children in the surrounding district, it has been used again as a primary school - initially as a branch of the chestnut tree nursery located in Gipsstrasse, and now as an independent "primary school on Koppenplatz".

Space design

The poor cemetery on a map from 1910

City square based on designs by Mächtig and Barth

At the end of the 19th century, a first town square was built on the remaining undeveloped area according to plans by Hermann Mächtig . In 1927 the garden architect Erwin Barth carried out a park-like redesign with a fountain in the middle. In the 1930s, the city planners had the square changed again.

Revision and installation of air raid shelters

View over Koppenplatz from northwest to southeast

In 1940/1941 two protective bunkers were built under Koppenplatz on the advice of the district mayor . These were created to protect people who were considered strategically important; the work was done by French prisoners of war. Completion took place on November 7th, 1941, and according to the mayor's information to the NSDAP local group, “the external design of the bunker was considerably more expensive than for all other similar buildings”.

Between 1945 and 1995

In 1950 and 1951, both entrances to the bunkers were bricked up and finally dismantled in 1995.

During the GDR era, the southern half of the square was converted into a playground. The redesign of the square took place in 1990/1991, whereby the playground was retained and a small park was created only on the northern half of the square, which is based on the layout by Erwin Barth from the 1920s.

Place and preserved buildings

Koppenplatz consists of the central park with a children's playground to the south, as well as the streets and their buildings that border the square to the west, east and south.

The buildings on the east side of the square mainly include rental and residential buildings that were built in the second half of the 19th century. The west side is occupied by the three-part building of the Hollmannschen Wilhelminen-Amalien-Stiftung, which was used as a senior citizens' home during the GDR era, was empty for a few years after the fall of the Wall and was converted into a residential complex in 2004, as well as the former 1st floor built by Ludwig Hoffmann Community school, which today houses the municipal primary school on Koppenplatz. Next to the school is the Koppendenkmal on the facade of the neighboring house, which is enclosed by a low fence. On the south side, the red-brick rear of the BEWAG substation, the front of which faces Auguststrasse, stands out from the surrounding residential buildings.

Monuments and sculptures

Monument The abandoned room

The square is lined with numerous architectural monuments. The Hollmannsche Wilhelminen-Amalien-Stiftung, the school building and the apartment building number 6 are listed as individual monuments . In addition, the garden belonging to the foundation building is designated as a garden monument. The apartment buildings 1, 2, 5 and 7-10 belong to the Spandauer Vorstadt monument ensemble, and the town square with its park is also listed as part of this ensemble. It contains the sculpture Geschwister and the monument The Abandoned Room .

The bronze sculpture Geschwister was designed and executed in 1968 by the sculptor Karl Lemke . She stands on the playground at Koppenplatz and represents an unclothed pair of siblings playing with each other. The boy crouches on all fours and lets his sister ride on his back while they both look at each other.

The memorial The abandoned room was designed in 1991 by the sculptor Karl Biedermann and the garden architect Eva Butzmann and erected in 1996 from cast bronze. It consists of a base plate, which represents a floor, as well as a table and two chairs, one of which has fallen over. The base plate is framed by a frieze with verses from the poetry collection by Nelly Sachs published in 1947 . The memorial is intended to commemorate the deportation of the numerous Jews from the Scheunenviertel during the time of National Socialism in Germany.

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Mende, Kurt Wernicke: Berliner Bezirkslexikon Mitte . Edition Luisenstadt, Berlin 2001.
  • Klaus Hammer: Historic cemeteries in Berlin . Stattbuch Verlag, Berlin 1994.
  • Ulrike Steglich and Peter Kratz: The wrong Scheunenviertel . Altberliner Bücherstube, Verlagbuchhandlung Oliver Seifert, Berlin 1994, p. 83 ff.
  • Volker Huebner and Christian Oehmig: Spandauer Vorstadt in Berlin-Mitte. An art and monument guide . Michael Imhoff Verlag, Petersberg 2003, p. 13 ff.

Web links

Commons : Koppenplatz (Berlin-Mitte)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. from Hübner and Oehmig 2003
  2. Quoted from Steglich et al. 1994, p. 83
  3. Quoted from Steglich et al. 1994, p. 84
  4. ^ A b Institute for Monument Preservation (Ed.): The architectural and art monuments of the GDR. Capital Berlin-I . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1984, p. 298 299 .
  5. According to Hübner and Oehmig 2003, p. 105
  6. Renovation of the Koppenplatz 12 building
  7. ^ Press release 2005 from the district office in Mitte on Koppenplatz; Retrieved November 18, 2010
  8. https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/staedtebau/foerderprogramme/stadtumbau/Schule-am-Koppenplatz.5089.0.html
  9. Straube's overview plan of Berlin, 1910 (reissue Edition Gauglitz 2003)
  10. From a letter from the mayor to the NSDAP , quoted from Steglich et al. 1994, p. 84
  11. Bunker at risk of collapse is being dismantled / Twelve trees fall: Koppenplatz will soon be on the ground floor. In: Berliner Zeitung. Retrieved June 15, 2016 .
  12. Wolfgang Feyerabend, Thomas Raschke, Veit Stiller: Through the Scheunenviertel and the Spandau suburb . Haude & Spener, Berlin 2004
  13. ^ The abandoned space - memorial for Jewish citizens on the Internet city guide "Berlin Hidden Places". Retrieved December 10, 2018 .
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 2, 2006 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '42 "  N , 13 ° 23' 52"  E