Office building of the Reichspostzentralamt

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Reichspostzentralamt (Telecommunications Office 4 Tempelhof)
The former Reichspostzentralamt at Ringbahnstrasse 130

The former Reichspostzentralamt at Ringbahnstrasse 130

Data
place Berlin-Tempelhof
architect Edmund Beisel and Karl Pfuhl
Architectural style Expressionism , Art Deco elements as architectural decorations
Construction year 1925-1928
Coordinates 52 ° 28 '8.3 "  N , 13 ° 22' 33.6"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 28 '8.3 "  N , 13 ° 22' 33.6"  E

The former service building of the Reichspostzentralamt is a listed , architecturally and technologically significant post building in the Berlin district of Tempelhof-Schöneberg .

location

The impressive building is located at Ringbahnstraße 130 south of the A 100 city motorway between Schöneberger Straße and Manteuffelstraße . Various departments of Deutsche Telekom AG were housed in the building until the end of August 2018 , since then it has been cleared and then converted for the new tenant. The Berlin police's anti-terror center is to be built here in 2020 .

The administration of the Museum for Communication Berlin is housed in warehouse II .

History and architecture

Two mighty storage buildings of the Guard Train Battalion from the end of the 19th century have been preserved on the site. After the loss of the First World War , military use became superfluous, so that in June 1922 the Reich Ministry of Post rented the buildings for the interests of the Telegraph Technology Reich Office , which was founded on October 1, 1920 , in order to set up laboratories, workshops, warehouses and offices. Due to the rapid technical development, the new authority quickly gained in importance. New office space and highly specialized laboratories were needed and could not be accommodated in the old buildings. The post office building councilors Edmund Beisel and Karl Pfuhl presented the post office minister with the draft for a new main building and in May 1925 the construction of the building for the Reich authority, which had meanwhile been renamed and upgraded to the Reich Post Central Office, could begin.

Central stair hall

The building, completed in 1928, is a five-storey steel frame construction clad with blue-red clinker bricks. The construction costs amounted to 4.85 million marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 17.34 million euros). The upper floor, richly ornamented with brick patterns, is set back. The 172-meter-long south facade on Ringbahnstrasse has a strict vertical structure. The distinctive structure is made up of two forward corner wings and two seven-storey tower structures with crystalline pointed arches that interrupt the central wing and point to the main entrance. The slim, chimney-like tower tops with the antennas no longer exist. Radio measurement laboratories were housed in the tower rooms. In the 1970s, mullion-free windows were installed on the building as a measure against the noise pollution from the nearby Tempelhof Airport . At the back, the building is connected to the former warehouse (warehouse II) by a two-storey bridge.

Inside, the four-storey stairwell with atrium, structured by pillars and elaborately decorated with turquoise-blue ceramic tiles, sets a special architectural accent. The original skylight glazing with colored and cut glass was destroyed in the Second World War and replaced by simple matt glazing.

Plans for a monumental extension of the complex in the style of the time could no longer be realized due to the beginning of the Second World War in 1939. The building is an outstanding example of the North German brick expressionism of the 1920s, which was fond of decor , comparable to the buildings by Fritz Höger , Wilhelm Kreis or Philipp Schaefer .

The Reichspostzentralamt was the birthplace and development center of television . In the electrical and radio technology test laboratories, decisive research was carried out which determined the development of radio, telephone and telegraphy beyond Germany.

The technical college of the Deutsche Bundespost Berlin, which emerged from the engineering school, was housed on the upper floors of the building until it was closed in 1997.

  • Main entrance

  • Central portal (detail)

  • Imperial eagle by Josef Thorak above the main entrance

  • Central staircase hall with atrium

  • Central stair hall

  • Central staircase hall, openwork partition wall

  • Connecting bridge to the storage building (left)

Web links

Commons : Reichspostzentralamt  - Collection of images

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ulrich Kraetzer: New anti-terror center is being built in Tempelhof. Security in Berlin. In: Berliner Morgenpost. March 15, 2018, accessed March 15, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Ulrich Zawatka-Gerlach: 125 million euros for new anti-terror headquarters. Berlin-Tempelhof. In: Der Tagesspiegel . June 22, 2018, accessed June 24, 2018 .
  3. ^ Postcard from 1938
  4. ^ Matthias Donath et al. : Monuments in Berlin, Tempelhof-Schöneberg district , p. 100