Place of memory

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"Place of Remembrance" commercial building on Axel-Springer-Strasse in Berlin-Kreuzberg

The Ort der memorial office building is a building complex at Axel-Springer-Strasse 44 to 50 in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg , which consists of a listed building section and an adjacent new building.

History and function of the building

Entrance portal to the listed area

The listed area includes house numbers 44 and 47. Here, under the direction of Hans Bernoulli and Louis Runkel, a commercial building was built for the Fischbein & Mendel company , which sold children's clothing. The Werkbund-style building is structured by a light sandstone facade and protruding pilasters . This striking structure is reinforced at night by lighting that has been added later. The ground floor with the large entrance portal designed by two round arches is optically separated from the other floors by a cornice ; However, the building blends in with the overall appearance of the street thanks to an eaves height that is adapted to the adjacent building .

The Barmer Ersatzkasse took over the building in 1932 and rented it to the Neues Volk publishing house , the Reichsgesundheitsverlag and the German Medical Association . The building was badly damaged in World War II and prompted the Barmer to move to Nieheim in East Westphalia and to Bad Hermannsborn . In addition, after the wall was built, the border with East Berlin ran right in front of the sidewalk .

The building at night

In 1994 the Barmer Ersatzkasse commissioned the architects Bernoulli & Rinkel and Ahlborn and Partners to plan an extension to the existing building. The new building is visually distinct from the listed area. Although it also has five storeys, neither the cornice nor the eaves height is completely taken up. Above the five floors is another, semicircular floor, the vertical lines of which take up the entrance to the inner courtyard. The reinforced concrete building was erected in two years, using a plot of land of 2,847 m² and building over an area of ​​1,424 m². The section on which the Lindenstrasse synagogue by Cremer & Wolffenstein from 1890/1891 once stood was also partially built on . This was badly damaged in the course of the November pogroms in 1938 . The complex was destroyed in the attack on February 3, 1945 , and the ruins were demolished in 1956. In order to revive the memory of the place, a memorial was inaugurated on June 20, 1997 with the title Blatt by the three Israeli artists Micha Ullman , Zvi Hecker and Eyal Weizman . It recreates the floor plan of the former building and represents a single page, a sheet (hence the name of the memorial) from a Jewish prayer book - the Talmud . In addition, three information boards were attached to the front of the building, reminding of the synagogue.

Others

Memorial sheet in the courtyard of the building complex

As a counterpoint to the memorial, there is another work by Micha Ullman with the title Nobody further south in Lindenstrasse .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Extension of the Barmer Ersatzkasse on stadtentwicklung.berlin.de , accessed on October 17, 2011.
  2. ^ Building of the Barmer Ersatzkasse on luise-berlin.de , accessed on October 17, 2011.
  3. ↑ Location of the new building in relation to the synagogue on stadtentwicklung.berlin.de , accessed on October 17, 2011.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '30.2 "  N , 13 ° 23' 59.3"  E