New Packhof (Berlin)

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View into the Kupfergraben around 1835: on the left the five-storey warehouse of the New Packhof, in the background (center) the Berlin City Palace , on the right the buildings of the Royal Gunsmith's Shop.
Painting by Friedrich Wilhelm Klose
The old orangery on Museum Island has served as the Neuer Packhof since 1749. Later a crockery store was housed here.
Attachment to a Berlin city map by Seutter

The New Packhof in Berlin was a large central customs and tax office that was important for the Berlin economy and was connected to a warehouse. It existed from 1749 to 1938 on what is now known as the “ Museum Island ” on the Spree .

The Museum Island: a former industrial park

Before the Spree island north of Berlin's Lustgarten became a “Museum Island” and a World Heritage Site , it was primarily a commercial and residential area for over a century. Only gradually did magnificent museum buildings in an antique style spread out on the site, displacing the mundane storage sheds and magazines.

The New Packhof in the old orangery

In 1749, the Prussian King Friedrich II made the so-called Orangery House at Lustgarten available, which had not been needed for its original purpose since 1713, as a supplement to the old Packhof that had previously existed on the Spreegraben , which had become too narrow. A wooden slewing crane was installed on the quay to lift the goods from the ships, which could enter the port via a communication ditch from the Spree . This facility was now called "Neuer Packhof" to distinguish it from the old Packhof.

The expansion and modernization by Schinkel

Between 1829 and 1831 the Neue Packhof, which had also become too narrow due to the increase in the turnover of goods, was completely redesigned and expanded according to designs by Karl Friedrich Schinkel . For this purpose, a long strip of land was used along the Kupfergraben , which used to be a timber market . The old orangery was sold and from then on served as a warehouse for the so-called "health crockery".

The expanded Neue Packhof Am Kupfergraben was a purely functional building: port, warehouse, transshipment point, control station and tax office for goods of all kinds. It was built in connection with Schinkel's copper ditch plan, following that for the construction of the Royal Museum at Lustgarten (today: Altes Museum ) area between the Spree and the Kupfergraben and in line of sight with the Bauakademie and museum. In his conception, Schinkel incorporated the experiences he had made with English role models on his trip to England. The warehouse of the New Packhof is one of the first industrial buildings in Berlin.

The new buildings

The floor plan of the New Packhof am Kupfergraben
Drawing by Karl Friedrich Schinkel , 1829
The Neue Packhof was expanded and completely redesigned from 1829–1831 by Karl Friedrich Schinkel.
Detail from Selter's Berlin plan, 1846
View of the New Packhof from the south. Right: the trees of the pleasure garden, behind them the residence of the general tax director.
Graphic by CG Eislen, 1834
View of the New Packhof from the north: the five-storey warehouse on the left. On the quay you can still see: the gallery-like shed with the cranes and the two residential and administrative buildings, the house of the Packhof director (in the middle) dominated by the dome of the Berlin Cathedral at the Lustgarten.
Drawing by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 1829

The new Packhof facility modernized by Schinkel, which stretched along the Kupfergraben almost to the tip of the island, comprised various buildings and facilities. Schinkel himself explained it in a publication.

The Packhof am Kupfergraben, which was redesigned and rebuilt by Schinkel, initially consisted of these five structures:

  1. The residence of the General Tax Director, a building almost square in shape, which was located at the entrance to the Packhof premises. This building, later next to the Neues Museum, had a small inner courtyard and, in addition to the apartment of the General Tax Director, also contained the defeat and the cash register for the stamp paper as well as the offices of the General Tax Directorate. A three-sided gable relief (fronton) was attached to this building on the street side , which indicated the purpose of the entire complex.
  2. The connection; a long, narrow structure of low height; he connected the home of the general tax director with the northwestern home of the Packhof director. In the connecting building there were also some offices of Packhof employees. There was a garden area on the side facing the Kupfergraben. The access road to the packing yard ran behind the connecting building. The main entrance to the Packhof was also located here.
  3. The residential building for the Packhof director and his employees. This house was also almost square in shape, again had a small inner courtyard and, in addition to the apartments, also contained the large inspection room and the rooms of the Packhof administration, with the exception of those in the long connecting building.
  4. A gallery-like shed; this shed stretched northwest of the Packhof Director's house along the Packhofplatz along the water. This is where the disembarked goods were initially stored, which is why the necessary cranes were also set up here.
  5. A five-storey store where goods of all kinds could be stored. This building was located at the north-western end of the Packhof complex as a neighbor of the flour warehouse of the baker's guild (which had been further south-east before the expansion of the Packhof, on the site of the newly built residence of the General Tax Director). Across from the granary, on the other side of the copper trench, was the royal gunsmith's shop.

Further expansions

The expanded New Packhof was put into operation in 1832. Schinkel added additional buildings to the complex as early as 1833 and 1834, including a branch canal, the so-called "salt ditch" and the salt store that was at the end of the salt ditch.

Demolished by 1938

The expanded Neue Packhof, which was put into operation in 1832, was demolished in parts a few decades later to make way for new museum buildings. The Schinkel system gradually gave way to the new museums. A new Packhof was built in Berlin-Moabit between the Spree and the Berlin Stadtbahn between 1880 and 1886 . Until the mid-1930s, the residential building of the General Tax Director, which housed the Salt Tax Office, still existed on the former Packhof site. This last part of the Packhof complex was only removed in 1938, as the foundation walls had sunk dangerously in several places due to the poor building ground.

literature

  • Sybille Gramlich: Royal Spree Athens. Berlin in Biedermeier. In: Rolf Bothe, Dominik Bartmann : Cityscapes. Berlin in painting from the 17th century to the present. Berlin 1987, pp. 95-172.
  • Renate Petras: The buildings of the Berlin Museum Island. VEB Verlag für Bauwesen, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-345-00052-0 .
  • Karl Friedrich Schinkel : Collection of Architectural Designs. Verlag von Ernst & Korn, Berlin 1858 (one text volume, four panel volumes, online ).
  • Veronika Thum: Neuer Packhof 1829-1832. ( online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Veronika Thum: Neuer Packhof 1829-1832. ( online ).
  2. ↑ cf. the description of Schinkel himself. In: Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Collection of architectural designs. Verlag von Ernst & Korn, Berlin 1858, Zum Neuen Packhof: Im Textband, p. 10.
  3. ^ Sybille Gramlich: Royal Spree Athens. Berlin in Biedermeier. In: Rolf Bothe, Dominik Bartmann: Cityscapes. Berlin in painting from the 17th century to the present. Berlin 1987, pp. 154-155.
  4. ↑ Under Hermann Blankenstein , the later building director and building officer of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck, Eugen Deditius , worked on the building of the Packhof complex at the Lehrter station .
  5. ↑ Fritz Wolff and Hermann Keller: The buildings of the new Packhof facility in Berlin . In: Zeitschrift für Bauwesen , Vol. 35 (1885), Sp. 1–40, Tables 1–4. Digitized in the holdings of the Central and State Library Berlin .