Moabiter Werder
Moabiter Werder is the name of an area that extends in the Berlin district of Moabit ( Mitte district ) on the north bank of the Spree between the main train station in the east and the " Federal President's Triangle " in the west. To the north, the area is bounded by the route of the light rail .
history
The area of today's Moabiter Werder has been the property of the city of Berlin since the 13th century. Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I (the "Great Elector") thus enlarged his hunting ground in 1655, today's Great Zoo south of the Spree. At the beginning of the 18th century the step was reversed. Now some of the Huguenots who had fled to Berlin shortly before were supposed to plant mulberry trees here - King Frederick I hoped for a profitable Prussian silk production . The partly sandy, partly muddy soil proved unsuitable. A little later, the refugees successfully grew asparagus and other vegetables here . The "Menardie", a dining and garden bar, had existed on Werder since 1698, run by a Huguenot named Menard, who was very popular with "better" Berlin society.
The royal powder factories were built to the west of today's Moltke bridge from 1717. In 1734, magazines for storing gunpowder were also built nearby . The entire Prussian army could soon be supplied from here. When the settlement in the area became denser, powder production had to be relocated to Spandau in 1839 for safety reasons . From 1811 until 1855 there was a river bathing establishment on the “Powder Meadows”, in which Berlin's first swimming club was founded in 1840.
Since 1850, more and more industrial companies have settled in Moabit , including a shipyard on the Spree. The nearby Werftstrasse is a reminder of this. Not far from the Moabiter Werder, the construction of the Lehrter station began in 1869 . As a result, the associated unloading and customs station was built on the Werder (later: Spreeufer freight station ). The Spree meadows, which have remained essentially unchanged for centuries, had to be fundamentally redesigned: the Spree was canalised and its banks were filled up in order to create the technical prerequisites for the transfer of goods from water to rail . In addition to the railway systems, buildings for customs and taxation were built . Houses, sheds and railroad tracks were badly damaged in World War II. In the 1960s, rail freight traffic on the Moabiter Werder finally came to a standstill. Forwarding and storage companies used part of the area, the remaining area was kept free of development and overgrown for the possible subsequent construction of a city motorway, for commercial operations or service facilities.
For the 1991 Federal Garden Show , which was to take place again in West Berlin , the Berlin Senate had a new park planned on the Moabiter Werder along the Spree in the 1980s. At the same time, as a continuation of the nearby Hansaviertel , some high-rise buildings with a total of around 1200 residential units were to be built. With the German reunification in 1990 and the capital resolution of the German Bundestag in 1991, these plans initially became irrelevant. Now the area was in the immediate vicinity of existing or planned functional buildings in the federal capital and should be used accordingly.
Federal buildings
Residential buildings
Outstanding and best-known buildings on the Moabiter Werder are the residential buildings for members of the Bundestag and for federal employees in Berlin. They were created as a result of a competition in 1995. The design by the Berlin architect Georg Bumiller did not receive the first prize, but only a "special purchase", but was nevertheless proposed by the jury for implementation and ultimately also built. The main component of the building complex is a 320 m long, multi-winding brick building with 718 residential units, which rises from five to eight floors from east to west. The house is praised for its distinctive snake shape (“ spatial sculpture ”) and because, under difficult spatial conditions, it takes up the central idea from the federal government, according to which the new government center on the other side of the Spree was designed. Negative comments concern the sheer size of the property, the lack of balconies and relatively small interiors with low ceilings. The entire building complex is completed by four atrium houses and a head building in the west of the “snake”, each designed by different architects.
New building for the Ministry of the Interior
From 2010 to 2014 , the Federal Ministry of the Interior built a new building based on designs by the architects Thomas Müller and Ivan Reimann on a state-owned property in the northeast of Moabiter Werder, which combines the previous locations.
The area was previously used in part as a bus parking lot for visitors to the parliament and government district. The project was initially controversial because of the high costs and the tight budget. From the perspective of the ministry, security interests and the possible, but legally uncertain, exit from a very long-term, unfavorable lease spoke in favor of a new building . The first phase of a lucrative Europe-wide architectural competition was completed in March 2006. The Federal Court , however, had oversized new construction plans at the end of 2005 and criticized too expensive. In November 2006, the budget committee of the Bundestag blocked the planning costs applied for in 2007, called for “more concrete planning” and demanded that the use of existing buildings be examined as an alternative.
In April 2009, the budget committee of the German Bundestag approved the construction project. The construction costs should be around 200 million euros. The construction work was temporarily halted from July to November 2011 due to disputes over the award of the contract. The building was completed in autumn 2014 and the move took place over a single weekend from April 24th to 26th, 2015.
Other buildings
The social infrastructure of Moabiter Werder includes a school, a two-storey sports hall and a day-care center. These buildings near the Spree include the former administration building of the freight station, a listed clinker brick building from the 1930s. After renovation and expansion that is here Anne Frank - primary school housed.
The police and fire station for the parliament and government district, which was completed in 2004, is located in the east of Werder . It consists of an old building - the preserved, now expanded fragment of a large administrative building of the former main customs office - and an integrated new building, which with a glass facade in red and green tones forms a strong contrast to the old sandstone and brick structures .
Two other buildings survived the Second World War , in particular the fierce fighting over the nearby Reichstag building, almost unscathed. On the eastern edge a small half-timbered house from 1898, in which the “Paris – Moscow” restaurant is currently operated; and on the Uferweg opposite the Chancellery, at the location of the old "Menardie", the former Packhof casino , currently also a restaurant with a beer garden .
Parks
The landscaping facilities cover a total of 5.2 hectares and consist mainly of two parts - the Spreewiesen east of Paulstrasse and the " Bundespräsident-Dreieck ", an area west of Paulstrasse, opposite Bellevue Palace on the other bank of the Spree , the official residence of the Federal President . The planning comes from two landscape architecture offices: Kienast Vogt Partner, Zurich , and the Berliners Seebauer, Wefers and Partner. The green area was created between 2000 and 2004 as part of the development measure “Capital Berlin - Parliament and Government District”, funded by the State of Berlin and the Federal Republic.
The site is designed as an open park. It is not a large landscaped garden, but a - with around one kilometer - elongated, but mostly quite narrow green corridor. Spread across the lawns are ten small elliptical themed fields that are supposed to offer botanical diversity, contrasts and surprises. A group of overgrown locust trees was framed with granite blocks and will be left to its own devices in the future. The non-public Chancellor Park, 30,000 m² in size and equipped with a helicopter landing pad, is separated from the rest of Werder by a high wall with surveillance technology. It contains a larger part of the old trees and can be reached from the Chancellery via a narrow bridge ( Chancellery footbridge ) over the Spree.
The connecting element of the park is the up to 20 meter wide promenade . It offers views of the Victory Column , Bellevue Palace, the Chancellery and the main train station and is used extensively as a walk along the river.
Web links
- Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development: The Moabiter Werder .
- Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development: Promenade and park on the Moabiter Werder completed - press release from 2002.
- Georg Bumiller's snake-shaped residential complex and other buildings. In: Der Tagesspiegel November 14, 1999.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federal Ministry of the Interior: The Ministry introduces itself: New building of the BMI ( Memento from September 14, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ).
- ↑ Federal Ministry of the Interior: BMI new building: construction freeze lifted. News from November 21, 2011 ( Memento from March 12, 2017 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ Federal Ministry of the Interior: Relocation to the new building in Moabiter Werder. News dated April 27, 2015.
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 6 ″ N , 13 ° 21 ′ 30 ″ E