Market hall IV
Markthalle IV, opened in 1886 at Dorotheenstrasse 29 (now 84) and Reichstagufer 12-14 in Berlin's Dorotheenstadt , was the first phase of the municipal construction program for the Berlin market halls . This program, which lasted from 1883 to 1892, was intended to ensure that the steadily growing population of Berlin was adequately supplied with cheap food and to free the streets and squares from the weekly markets , which were increasingly perceived as unhygienic and an obstacle to traffic . The Berlin magistrate closed market hall IV in 1913 because it was unprofitable and sold the property to the Reichspost , which integrated parts of the former market hall into the new building of the Berlin post office . A significant part of the postal check traffic of the German Reich and later of the GDR ran through the post office check office, which was expanded and rebuilt in various ways . The post office ended its use in 1996, and since a complete renovation at the end of the 1990s, the listed building complex has served as the Berlin headquarters of the Federal Government's press and information office .
overview
Market hall IV, which has now disappeared, was located inside the parcel of land on Dorotheenstrasse 84 (according to the numbering Dorotheenstrasse 29, which was valid until 1911, then Dorotheenstrasse 23 until after 1945) and Reichstagufer 12-14 in Dorotheenstadt. The former front building at Dorotheenstrasse 84 is a listed building, and on the banks of the Spree, the walled up supply tunnel of the former market hall has been preserved, another architectural monument that distinguished market hall IV from the other small market halls in Berlin. The market hall complex was part of the construction program for a total of 14 small market halls in Berlin, which were built between 1883 and 1892 in three construction phases. City planning officer Hermann Blankenstein and his office drew the plans for the market hall, which was built from 1884 to 1886 in the first phase, as for the other halls.
The change in Dorotheenstadt and Friedrich-Wilhelm-Stadt from residential to business district and the associated decrease in the residential population made the operation of the market hall visibly unprofitable after the turn of the century. The Berlin magistrate closed the market hall in 1913 and sold the property at a profit to the Reichspost for the construction of the Berlin postal check office.
Government architect Alfred Lempp integrated the front building on Dorotheenstrasse and the solidly built basement into the new building of the post office, which was built between 1913 and 1917 and which the Reichspost had built in place of the demolished market hall. An extension built between 1920 and 1923, also based on plans by Alfred Lempp, took account of the steadily growing postal check traffic. In 1917, the Berlin Post Check Office ran 34,400 out of a total of 181,300 accounts, around a fifth of the post check accounts in the German Reich. In 1934 the Reichspost had over a million accounts, 169,000 of them in the Postscheckamt Berlin - the headquarters of German postal checks.
After the war damage in the Second World War , rebuilt and purified in a simplified manner , the GDR's Deutsche Post continued to use the post office, which was recently converted into a data center . In the western part of the city, the new building of the Postscheckamt Berlin West took over this function from 1971. The Deutsche Bundespost , which was merged with the Deutsche Post of the GDR after the political change , relocated the postcheck traffic from the building in Dorotheenstrasse to other centers and so ended in 1996 after almost eighty years use by the post office. Since a complete renovation, completed in 2000, with the reconstruction of the façade of the front building, which was chipped off after the Second World War, and additional new buildings, the complex has now served as the Berlin headquarters of the Federal Government's Press and Information Office.
Construction phase and opening
The market hall planned for Dorotheenstadt was supposed to supply not only Dorotheenstadt but also Friedrich-Wilhelm-Stadt on the opposite bank of the Spree . However, in the first few years after the opening in 1886, its residents had to take a detour via the Weidendammer Bridge or the Marschall Bridge , until the Schlütersteg, opened in 1890, enabled a direct pedestrian connection to the market hall. At its meeting on January 17, 1884, the city council approved the acquisition of the properties at Dorotheenstrasse 28–30 and Reichstagufer 12–14 for 1.25 million marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 9.42 million euros). Following the approval of the city council on May 21, 1884, the plans submitted by the magistrate for the small market halls of the first phase of the construction program, including market hall IV, construction work began on July 1, 1884.
In October 1884 work came to a standstill due to a conflict between the magistrate and the royal police headquarters . For all market halls, the Presidium called for the wooden roof to be divided into four-meter-wide, non-flammable strips into segments of a maximum size of 1,600 square meters and the passages through the front buildings and portals to be widened to nine meters. The work stopped on October 20, 1884 was suspended until the decision of the Minister of the Interior on April 22, 1885, which was in favor of the magistrate in the majority of the points of dispute.
The market hall IV opened on May 3, 1886 with the central market hall I on Alexanderplatz and the other two small market halls of the first construction phase, the market hall II and the market hall III . At the same time, the weekly markets replaced by Markthalle IV on Karlplatz and on the square in front of the Oranienburger Tor closed . The construction and furnishing costs for the market hall and the front buildings on Dorotheenstrasse and on the Reichstagufer totaled 782,259 marks.
The building plot
The property purchased on Dorotheenstrasse and the plots that were later separated and resold formed a trapezoid with a 51.91 meter long front on Dorotheenstrasse and lateral borders of 111.86 and 135.52 meters in length. The rear boundary of the property in the north formed the Spree at the time of purchase . However, the Reichstagufer embankment had already been planned and had been laid out at the time the market hall opened. In order to reduce the high property costs of 1.25 million marks , Hermann Blankenstein placed the market hall inside the property and kept the front buildings on Dorotheenstrasse and on the Reichstagufer to a minimum. The magistrate tried to sell on the remaining land - with success on Dorotheenstrasse. The two parcels on the bank of the Reichstag remained undeveloped until 1917. The magistrate rented these properties with a simple infrastructure - clinker paving and three candelabra for lighting each - "very cheap" to the fruit growers' association from Werder as sales points for fruit. The immediate location on the Spree enabled the fruit to be transported directly from the orchards in boats to the market hall. The fruit trees could be unloaded quickly and conveniently at the three loading platforms on the bank wall and brought directly to the cellar of the market hall through the supply tunnel crossing the bank road. With this facility, which is unique for the Kleinmarkthallen, Markthalle IV took over part of the wholesale trade for fruit and thus relieved the central market hall on Alexanderplatz. The connection to a waterway can only be found again in the projects for a new wholesale market hall from the pre-war and interwar period, which was to be built on a site between the Beusselstrasse train station and the Berlin-Spandau shipping canal .
The market hall complex
With the market hall inside the property and the two front buildings with their passageways, the market hall complex showed the typical elements of the halls of the municipal building program, which were not erected as free-standing halls like Market Hall V or Market Hall X. Hermann Blankenstein planned the front buildings as mixed residential and commercial buildings with shops on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors.
The front building on Dorotheenstrasse
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The 18-meter-wide front of the preserved front building on Dorotheenstrasse lies exactly in the axis of the Schadowstrasse which flows into it and, as it were, extended it through the portal into the market hall. The 14.87 meter deep front building was designed as a tenement house and originally enclosed a 7.5 meter wide courtyard with a cellar with two 9 meter long and 5.25 meter deep side wings, into which the passage from Dorotheenstrasse opened. In the six shops in the front building and the side wings, a butter shop , two delicatessen shops and a coffee shop were established. Two simpler apartments, including the apartment of the market hall inspector, were on the mezzanine floor due to the height of the passage. The stately apartments on the first and second floors took up the entire floor.
The late classical facade is in the tradition of the Schinkel School . Hermann Blankenstein had the portal of the passage and the window frames made of sandstone and the surfaces covered with yellow-red clinker bricks. As a national emblem, the coat of arms of Berlin in the arched spandrels of the portal of the passage refers to the client. The panels between the windows on the first and second floors and the frieze under the main cornice cover sgraffito-like tendril patterns in red and light gray and ornaments in Renaissance shapes . On the first floor, embedded terracotta medallions illustrate the market offer - poultry on the left, vegetables and fruit in the middle and fish and crabs on the right. In the original design, the inscription Markthalle IV above the portal, which was formerly lockable with a wrought-iron gate, referred to the building's purpose as a market hall.
Before it was converted into a post office check in 1917, cross-ribbed vaults and barrel vaults , as they have been preserved in the front building of Markthalle III , covered the 4.5 meter wide and 7.3 meter high passage. The pillars , belts and cross ribs, made of yellowish clinker bricks and shaped stones, divided the wall and vaulted surfaces. The courtyard facade was only given a simple facing made of yellowish bricks. Granite fairways in the passage and in the adjacent courtyard directed the traffic of the market carts. In the dark, a 9 amp arc lamp lit the passage.
The front building on the bank of the Reichstag
The front building on the Reichstagufer, which was demolished when it was converted into a post office, was 12 meters wide and limited to the portal of the 4.5 meter wide passage, accompanied by two passages for pedestrians - all of which could be closed by wrought iron bars. This design, reminiscent of a Roman triumphal arch , emphasized the public importance of the building and would have emphasized the narrow entrance to the market hall even after the neighboring properties in the street were developed (which never took place). On the terracotta reliefs above the pedestrian passages, putti showed what the market halls had to offer and the inscription Markthalle IV above the central portal once again mentioned the function of the building.
Five lined up arched windows on the first floor illuminated the waiting room of the photographic studio that Blankenstein had planned for the upper floors of the three-story front building. To him, “with the building front facing north, the layout of a photographic studio was particularly suitable.” Above the window zone, the projecting cornice supported by consoles followed with an arched frieze . The roof was completely glazed against the bank of the Reichstag because of the photographic studio in the attic. Apparently, however, it was difficult to find a photographer as a tenant for the studio, because it was not until the Berlin address book of 1897 that the Photographic Atelier listed R. Gentsch as a tenant. Whether because of the poor rentability or for other reasons: The studio in the front building of Markthalle IV remained an isolated case among the uses of the market hall front buildings.
As on Dorotheenstrasse, ribbed vaults vaulted the passage and a heptagonal room covered by a star vault mediated between the market hall axis - still in the extension of Schadowstrasse - and the diagonally intersecting axis of the exit to the Reichstagufer. The rest of the design - the structure of the walls and vaults with pillars, belts and cross ribs made of shaped stones, facing of the wall and vault surfaces with yellowish clinker bricks - was based on the other front building. To the left and right of the passage were five smaller shops, in which there was a fruit store and other stores not directly connected with the food supply but with the housekeeping, such as a kitchen utensil store, a chinaware store and a soap store. In the middle vault was the entrance to the restaurant for the times when the market hall was closed and thus the usual access from the hall was not possible. The wagon traffic rolled on granite fairways and the entrance could be illuminated by a 9-ampere arc lamp.
The market hall
The floor plan of the market hall formed an almost square rectangle measuring 55.02 by 54.34 meters. The central nave lay in the axis of Schadowstrasse and aligned the hall to the north. At 13 meters, it was slightly wider than the other small market halls in the first construction phase, but only slightly higher due to the flatter roof pitch. Eight 6.77 meter high cast iron pillars at a distance of 6 meters supported the central nave on both sides. Square iron posts, 5.7 meters high, were used on them, between which the wrought-iron arched trusses of the central nave were clamped. Their upper chords followed the flat slope of the gable roof, while the lower chords were designed as round arches. A large stiffening ring of 1.7 meters and two smaller ones of 85 centimeters in diameter in the arched gussets served to statically stiffen this support structure. I-profile irons attached as purlins between these arched girders supported the wooden rafters of the gable roof . At the height of the arched trusses, the central nave appeared as an approximately three meter high window wall. Tilting sashes, perforated metal sheets and glass blinds were used for ventilation. Three 6.2 meter wide side aisles accompanied the central nave on the left and right, which towered over them by five meters. 6.77 meter high cast iron columns as well as 2.29 meters on the left long wall and 1.84 meters long tongue walls on the right long wall on the outer walls carried the shed roofs with their north-facing windows , which are favorable for lighting and ventilation . On the side of the eatery at the northern right end of the hall, three skylights, 2 meters wide and 4 meters long, replaced the shed roof.
Blankenstein designed the windowless longitudinal walls of the market hall with the alternation of light yellow and light red clinker bricks and glazed bricks, which is already familiar from the passages. Light red facing bricks followed in the lower quarter of the wall above a 31 centimeter high granite plinth. Above this, a cornice made of light red shaped stones closed off the base zone and led to the upper, light yellow paneled wall surfaces. Rectangles set off with colored glazed bricks divided this area in the rhythm of the columns. A rosette frieze with a simple cornice corresponded with the capitals of the cast iron columns and formed the top of the wall.
The transverse walls dominated the arched portals of the central nave, which were closed by an iron and glass construction. The portal to the courtyard on Dorotheenstrasse was slightly larger and had separate doors for pedestrians next to the gate for the cars in the middle on the left and right. The narrower portal on the bank of the Reichstag, only with a common opening for cars and pedestrians, was accompanied by two blind arches. A clock set into the iron and glass construction showed the time to market visitors at both ends of the central nave. The upper wall zone, separated by a cornice roughly level with the side aisles, enlivened three coupled arched windows in the central axis and a smaller arched window each to the left and right of it. The wall surfaces at the ends of the aisles were given the structure with different colored bricks already known from the longitudinal walls and two coupled arched openings. Depending on requirements, they were designed as windows or doors and then led to adjoining rooms of the market hall such as the toilets . The access to the restaurant was especially excellent - this wall area was the only one to have a round arch portal instead of the coupled round arch openings and was thus easier for visitors to find in the bustling market.
The central nave narrowed in the passage area to nine meters due to market stalls drawn into it and was paved with six centimeter thick iron clinkers. The aisles and islands with the market stalls were covered with non-slip, ribbed Sinzinger tiles. Twenty electric arc lamps of 6 amps each in the side halls and two of 15 amps in the central hall illuminated the market hall in the early hours of the morning.
Use of the stand space in the 1890s
When visitors entered the market hall from Dorotheenstrasse in the 1890s, they found six stalls for sea fish on the right and 24 stalls for river fish and crabs on the left. The rest of the sales area on the right-hand side was mainly occupied by the 140 stalls for butter, cheese, delicacies, fruit and greenery . Towards the dining restaurant at the end of the hall there was a sales area without a fixed stand for wood and on the northern wall of the hall the market women offered birds and flowers. In the aisles on the left side of the hall, market visitors found a wide range of meat and game at 110 stalls. The 22 stalls on the last island sold bread, flour and food (starters), and birds and flowers were on offer on the hall wall.
Cellar and connecting tunnel
The entire market hall complex with the exception of the areas under the passage on Dorotheenstrasse and the atria had a cellar. The nearby Spree caused a high groundwater level, which is why the basement floor could only be lowered 94 centimeters below the highest observed groundwater level. As a result, the cellar vaults were rather low at 2.10 meters below the central nave and 2.26 meters below the side aisles. Complex groundwater sealing was also required. For this purpose, the foundations of the columns and pillars that support the basement ceiling were connected by 0.5 meter thick walls made of rammed cement concrete. These walls served as abutments for inverted barrel vaults , sealed against the groundwater by a 2 cm thick layer of cement. The entire basement was given a waterproof cement plaster up to the height of the maximum groundwater level.
The cellar served mainly as a warehouse for the traders. Four stairs in the corners and two in the middle of the main aisle of the market halls as well as two elevators connected the warehouse to the hall. Another staircase led to the fruit merchants' sales point to the west on the Reichstagufer. Two ice cellars allowed the storage of particularly perishable foodstuffs and for confiscated goods the market police had their own rooms, separated from the warehouse in the market hall by walls. The lounge for the market hall workers, which was moved to the basement of this market hall, was a bit gloomy, but at least had direct access to the atrium on the ground floor. In the engine room in the southwest corner, a gas-powered generator initially produced the electricity for lighting the market hall and the shops. It was dismantled after being connected to the public grid.
In order to be able to directly store the goods delivered by water, the cellar was connected to the loading platforms on the Spree by a tunnel under the street on the Reichstagufer. On the bank of the Spree, the tunnel was closed by a 2.5 meter wide, two-winged door made of wrought iron flat rails, which also ensured the ventilation of the market hall cellar. A close-meshed wire net prevented rats from entering. Since the high water level was higher than the basement floor, a 13 centimeter wide and 13 centimeter deep rebate was made behind the door, in which dam beams could be inserted as a support for a watertight fill if necessary . The walled-up former supply tunnel of the market hall is still clearly visible today in the embankment wall on the bank of the Reichstag and is a listed building.
Outbuildings
Between the southern outer wall of the market hall and the property line to the abandoned building sites on Dorotheenstrasse were six meter wide atriums. The abortions for men and women as well as the premises for the market police met as low market hall extensions. On the north wall of the hall to the west with the room for the hall inspector, the market supervisor and the meat inspector were further administrative rooms, separated by an atrium. The north wall to the east was occupied by the two-storey building of the restaurant, which had its own farmyard with an adjacent kitchen and scullery, separated from the fruit grower's sales area by a wall. The inn's apartment was on the upper floor of the restaurant.
Unprofitable and sold to the Reichspost
On January 1, 1909, the German Empire introduced postal checks. For Berlin, the post office NW 7 built in 1906 at Dorotheenstrasse 23-24, with the numbering Dorotheenstrasse 62-66, which has been in effect since 1912, took over the processing of postal checks. The new payment system was popular and the rapidly growing number of participants required an expansion that could no longer be implemented at the previous location. The Reichspost was therefore urgently looking for a plot of land in a central location and found a seller in the Berlin magistrate who was looking for a solution for Markthalle IV, which had become unprofitable. Since the market hall was built, Dorotheenstadt had developed from a residential to a business district due to its central location. Modern commercial buildings increasingly displaced residential buildings and the associated loss of resident population meant that customers of the market hall and thus also the traders stayed away. After the turn of the century, the occupancy of the sales booths fell from 53.1 percent in 1901 to 32.7 percent in 1911. For example, the magistrate sold Markthalle IV profitably for 3,811,740 marks to the Reichspost for the new building of the postal check office. In the sales contract he undertook to close the market hall by March 31, 1913. The two sales points of the Werderschen fruit growers were not supposed to be closed before July 1, 1915, but remained until December 1917 due to delays in construction work due to the beginning of the First World War .
Berlin post office
The government master builder Alfred Lempp carried out the planning for the renovation and new building . With the previous building, he took over its built-in location inside the plot, which at least on Dorotheenstrasse offered little space for a representative facade. This is probably one of the reasons why the front building on Dorotheenstrasse and the cellars of the market halls were preserved, while the actual market hall and the front building on the Reichstagufer were demolished in 1913. The four-storey new building of the post office, partly with an extended attic, was built inside the property over the foundation walls of the demolished market hall.
New building of the post office
With its narrow side wings on the property boundaries and a wider wing roughly in the middle of the property, the new post office enclosed a courtyard, which Lempp built over for the most part with the representative cash desk. The shortening of the side wings of the front building created space for a small forecourt in front of the new building.
The passage, now the passage to the main entrance of the post office, received a new wall design with a new ceiling. Instead of changing Blank stone cross and barrel vaults entered a simple barrel vaults whose surface intersecting ribs of stucco in the cassette are broken. The sculptor Hermann Feuerhahn , supported by the Christoph Hasselwander company, designed the stone surrounds for the windows of the new rear facade and other building sculptures in neoclassical forms with Art Nouveau echoes . The wall surfaces were given a simple fine plaster and a new statue of Mercury was enthroned above the keystone of the passage. Two spherical lights in bronze wall brackets on the rear facade as well as two chandeliers in the passage illuminating the passage and courtyard.
A stripe ashlar up to the height of the fighter of the passage arch continued on the transverse walls of the courtyard and found its counterpart in the facade of the post office. Two flights of stairs with flat steps led the customers through the forecourt to the main entrance of the post office. The remaining areas of the courtyard on the left and right were planted with lawn. Two Doric double columns framed the main entrance, which emerged as a one-story porch in front of the curved facade of the central building. Behind it, visitors came to the three-storey entrance hall with a double staircase on the left and right. The representative staircase with the pillar arcades and the artistically forged parapets from the Eduard Puls company , the solid wooden doors with their richly profiled frames, the windows with colored glass, the oval ceiling, decorated with stucco and paintings, with the large chandelier testify to the self-confidence of the largest of the 13 postal check offices in the German Empire. It was not inferior to the splendor of the business premises of the banks, which, unlike the post office checkpoints, only served selected, financially strong customers. The heart of the building, the adjoining ticket office, was a square room with a side length of 18 meters, which was adorned with a glass dome with a large imperial eagle inlaid with colored glasses . The glazing work was carried out by Moerike & Reich in Groß-Lichterfelde , the ironwork , as in the stairwell, by Eduard Puls in Berlin-Tempelhof . Heavy oak furniture gave the customers, who were served at 20 pay stations and two check acceptance points at the end of the counter, a feeling of solidity and trust.
In the room behind it in the central wing - no longer accessible to customers - was the cash receipt with the vault. The first floor in the east wing was used for the correspondence exchange, while the print shop and the printed matter administration were housed in the west wing. The movement of goods took place via the small courtyard, which was connected to the Reichstagufer by a passage on the ground floor of the central wing. On the upper floors, along the corridors in the side wings, the offices for the postal director, the postal inspectors, the personnel service and various rooms for the chancellery were lined up, while the check room, as a large hall, covered the entire area of the central building. On the second floor, the employees of the account office worked in large work rooms. The stairwells at the end of the side wings after the central building marked the planned and later extension of the building to a double courtyard up to the bank of the Reichstag.
Construction work on the post office began on July 17, 1913, three and a half months after the market hall closed. On January 29, 1917, the Postscheckamt Dorotheenstrasse opened its doors to customers after four years of construction.
The in-house pneumatic tube system
Check processing was supported by the most modern technology of the time. From the two acceptance points in the ticket hall, the checks were taken via a belt elevator, a kind of vertical conveyor belt, to the check point directly above. After entry in an appointment book which promoted house rabbit system the checks within the projectile by the inspection body to distribution points where they took office messengers to the jobs of the employees. After the check was checked, they were returned to the control center using the same route. Another belt elevator took them to the second floor for booking by the account office - here too, pneumatic post took over the fine distribution within the floor. Bundled in batches, the checks were finally returned to the chutes on the ground floor and via pneumatic tubes to the 20 paying offices. Each toll booth had its own pneumatic tube connection, but while the pneumatic tube pipes were routed openly under the ceiling on the upper floors, the Reichspost moved the pipes to the ceiling of the basement floor below in consideration of the architectural design of the hall.
Extension on the bank of the Reichstag
The development of the remaining property on the bank of the Reichstag was delayed due to the extensive construction freeze during the First World War. In the magazine Berliner Architekturwelt in 1918 Lempp published a floor plan for the extension building together with the report on the new building, which was only implemented later and changed. Construction began in late 1920 and was completed in October 1923. The extension, consisting of a five-storey wing with six storeys in the middle, along the Spree, connects with its two side wings along the property boundaries with the building from 1917 and encloses the courtyard, which is accessible via a passage. For this expansion, too, the Reichspost used the cellar of the former market hall and expanded it to include the former sales areas of the fruit dealers. The extension did not include any rooms for the public. The floors, including the two converted attic floors, were not further subdivided by partition walls, but were set up as large work rooms.
The facade of the new building from 1917 was quite narrow at 18 meters and was hidden in the narrow inner courtyard behind the front building of the former market hall on Dorotheenstrasse. With the 57-meter-long facade on the bank of the Reichstag, the post office could now also appear dignified to the outside world. The middle section with seven window axes contains the passages to the courtyard in the middle three axes on the ground floor. He steps forward slightly next to the two three-axis side facades. The ashlar strips give the ground floor the necessary weight as a "base" for the floors above. Eight columns with Ionic capitals brace the four upper floors of the middle section and support the main cornice. Above that, on the fifth floor of the middle section, the rectangular shape of the windows changes to arched windows.
When the extension was built, the central wing of the post office was given a fifth floor, and in 1925 the Reichspost integrated the former Hotel Prinz-Heinrich at Dorotheenstrasse 22, which it had acquired along with the Dorotheenstrasse 25 building in 1915/1916.
World War II and post-war period
In January 1944, during the Second World War , bombs damaged the roof of the former front building on Dorotheenstrasse and destroyed the hall's glass dome. The damage to the postal check office was not severe, so that the postal check traffic, which had completely collapsed at the end of the war, was resumed on July 25, 1945. Due to the currency reform on June 20, 1948 with the introduction of the Deutsche Mark in the western sectors and the subsequent Berlin blockade , the postal check office lost its importance for the whole of Berlin. The newsreel Welt im Film by the British and American occupying powers reported on August 20, 1948, that a separate post office was opened for West Berlin .
On the occasion of the 1951 World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin , the postal check office received a contemporary modernization of the external appearance. In the front building on Dorotheenstrasse, the terracottas, shaped stones, sandstone structures and sgraffito fields were chopped off for a simple scratch-plastered facade, only enlivened by the large lettering "POSTSCHECKAMT" above the portal and the shop signs for the HO branch that had moved into the front building. The last stucco that had remained after the destruction of the war disappeared in the counter hall.
From the beginning, automation has accompanied postal check traffic as a prerequisite for coping with the steadily growing orders. From the beginning of the 1970s, electronic booking procedures replaced the previous mechanical and electromechanical calculating and booking machines . The GDR's Deutsche Post had its computer center with electronic data processing systems installed in the former counter hall . These modifications resulted in the loss of the last remains of the historic ticket hall from 1917 and led to serious interventions in the entrance hall and the stairwell.
With the German reunification in 1990, the German Post of the GDR and the German Federal Post were also united . The data center was no longer needed and the post office ended using the building in 1996 after almost 80 years.
Press and Information Office of the Federal Government
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After the move from Bonn to Berlin, the Federal Government's Press and Information Office should be located as close as possible to the government headquarters. A decision by the Federal Cabinet determined the street block between Dorotheenstrasse and Reichstagufer: a total of eight parcels with buildings from the last quarter of the 19th century to prefabricated buildings from GDR times, including the front building of the market hall and the building of the post office. The design task of the 1995 competition called for offices for around 550 employees, infrastructures for press conferences and other events as well as rooms for the library and archive with eight million newspaper clippings and 1.5 million photographs.
The realization of the winning project by the architects' office KSP Engel und Zimmermann was divided into three construction phases, which were completed in October 1997, October 1998 and August 2000. In the third construction phase, the architects freed the former cash desk of the post office from later installations and replaced the glass dome, which was lost in World War II, with a modern steel and glass construction. The round, representative hall, named after the resistance fighter Theodor Haubach , is used for press conferences and other special events of the press and information office. A catalog of the Ernst March company that was found surprisingly with photographs of the terracotta tiles and shaped stones as well as historical images allowed the reconstruction of the facade on Dorotheenstraße in the original form designed by Blankenstein. Only the year numbers on the second floor have been changed - with 1886 the year of the opening of the market hall, 1917 the year of the opening of the post office and 1999 the year of the general renovation, they name the defining key dates in the history of the building complex.
literature
- Berliner Architekturwelt: magazine for architecture, painting, sculpture and contemporary arts. Issue 20, 1918, pp. 257–276 (Figures 368–389), issue in the electronic journal library of the Central and State Library in Berlin .
- Jochen Boberg (Ed.): Exercise field of the modern. Industrial culture in Berlin in the 19th century (= industrial culture of German cities and regions. Berlin. Volume 1). CH Beck, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-406-30201-7 , pp. 106-113 and 166-168.
- Thorsten Knoll: Berlin market halls (= Berlin reminiscences 69). Haude and Spener, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-7759-0392-5 .
- August Lindemann : The market halls of Berlin. Your structural systems and operating facilities on behalf of the magistrate. Springer, Berlin 1899, pp. 41–43 as well as panels 17 and 18.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b André Franik: The post office check office Dorotheenstrasse / Reichstagufer is opened . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 1, 2000, ISSN 0944-5560 , p. 49-52 ( luise-berlin.de ).
- ↑ Architects Association of Berlin and Association of Berlin Architects (ed.): Berlin and its buildings. Volume 1: Introductory - Engineering. Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1896, p. 151.
- ^ A b c August Lindemann: The market halls of Berlin. 1899, pp. 41–43 and panels 17 and 18.
- ↑ Berlin address book. Using official sources. Scherl, Berlin 1887.
- ↑ a b Berlin address book. Using official sources. Scherl, Berlin 1898.
- ↑ Erich Rindt: The market halls as a factor in Berlin's economic life. Vergin, Berlin 1928, p. 31.
- ↑ a b Berlin architecture world. Booklet 20, 1918, pp. 257-276 (Figures 368-389).
- ↑ Archive for Post and Telegraphy. Volume 45, 1918, ZDB ID 502740-8 , pp. 134-145.
- ^ Welt im Film (WIF) 169 of August 20, 1948: New post office and food office in the western sectors after relocation from the Soviet sector.
Web links
- Entries in the Berlin State Monument List: for the entire ensemble ,for the post office andfor the connecting tunnel of the former market hall IV
- Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development ( Memento from December 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Picture of the interior of the market hall 1886 in the Architekturmuseum Berlin
- Picture of the front house on Dorotheenstrasse after it was converted into a post office, around 1930/40
- Post-war picture of the front building on Dorotheenstrasse from the 1950s with the simplified facade
- On the reconstruction of the terracottas ( Memento from November 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 918 kB)
- List of listed buildings of the postal and telecommunications system
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 9 ″ N , 13 ° 23 ′ 1 ″ E
Market Hall I (Central Market Hall ) - Market Hall II (Lindenhalle) - Market Hall III (Indoor Hall ) - Market Hall IV - Market Hall V - Market Hall VI (Farm Hall ) - Market Hall VII - Market Hall VIII - Market Hall IX (Railway Hall ) - Market Hall X (Arminius Hall ) - Market Hall XI (Marheinekehalle) - Market Hall XII - Market Hall XIII - Market Hall XIV - Flower Wholesale Market Hall Kreuzberg
