South African Embassy in Berlin

South African Embassy in Berlin-Tiergarten

The South African embassy in the embassy district of the Berlin district of Tiergarten ( Mitte district ) was built from 2002 to 2003 as the headquarters of the diplomatic mission of South Africa in Germany .

Location, construction and architecture

Location of the embassy

The embassy is located at Tiergartenstrasse 18 on the southern edge of the Tiergarten , between Hildebrandstrasse and Stauffenbergstrasse. There are currently four buildings in this block. The direct neighbor of the South African Embassy is to the east - on the left as seen from Tiergartenstrasse - the Indian Embassy (No. 16/17). On the neighboring property to the west - on the right as seen from Tiergartenstrasse - is the new building of the Turkish Embassy , on the other side of the street - in the line of sight of the building's inner courtyard - the Richard Wagner monument .

The almost 2,600  m² property of the South African Embassy is around 35 meters wide, almost 75 meters deep and slightly sloping towards the street. Before the destruction of World War II , the property was home to the Egyptian legation at number 18b. The neighboring property with the then number 17a was owned by South Africa and housed the embassy of the Union of South Africa in a neoclassical villa . After South Africa acquired the neighboring property to the east in the 1930s, this villa could be expanded. The legation villa was destroyed in World War II, the ruins were blown up in 1951 and the property cleared. From 1975 the South African embassy resided in Bad Godesberg (see: Embassy of the Republic of South Africa in Bonn ). The fallow land at Tiergartenstrasse 17a / 18 remained in the possession of South Africa even after the division of Berlin and was leased to the State of Berlin for a symbolic amount until 1996, which wanted to expand the zoo's green corridor here. In 1997 the decision was made to build a new embassy building on the property that has now been combined to number 18.

On November 14, 2003, the South African Embassy was officially opened in the presence of the then Foreign Ministers of Germany and South Africa - Joschka Fischer and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma . The first South African ambassador to move into the new building was Sibusiso Bengu . The construction costs amounted to 9.5 million euros, which seems cheap compared to other new embassy buildings from the 1990s. However, due to the previous ownership, the construction costs do not include the value of the property, which puts the comparison into perspective. The South African Embassy in Berlin was the first new embassy in South Africa since the final end of the apartheid regime in 1994 and was intended to represent the “new, democratic South Africa” in a special way.

Detail of the facade design with slats , in front: Buddy Bear South Africa

The development plan stipulates that the area should be built with detached city ​​villas that are at least 10 meters apart and a maximum of 16 meters high. The design by the architectural firm mma architects (Mphethi Moroje, Luyanda Mpahlwa, Alun Samuels, Gandhi Maseko, Johannesburg / Cape Town / Berlin) for the embassy as a solitaire goes to the limits of these specifications, with the building floor plan measuring 24 meters by 52 meters. The floor plan consists of two L-shaped building blocks, the shorter leg of which is aligned parallel to the front of the property. The building blocks form a rectangle on the outside and enclose an atrium on the inside. The eastern part of the building protrudes from the front, creating a staggered facade that follows Tiergartenstrasse, which is slightly sloping towards the property. The building height of 16 meters also corresponds to the maximum height, divided into the basement, ground floor and three upper floors. The facade is rather reserved compared to the neighboring Indian embassy: the base is clad with black hard stone from Zimbabwe , the upper floors have partly a glass facade and partly a yellowish “Golden Dawn” sandstone from Naboomspruit in the South African province of Limpopo . The sandstone surfaces are structured by horizontal aluminum strips that protrude from the facade and thus also have a sun protection function. Plastered surfaces inside and outside the embassy are designed with the traditional litema technique.

See also

• List of South African ambassadors in Germany

literature

• Katharina Fleischmann: Messages with messages - of spatial images and a new geography . BIS-Verlag, Oldenburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8142-2108-3 , urn : nbn: de: gbv: 715-oops-9533 . (Volume 24 of the series Perception Geographical Studies , also a dissertation at the Free University of Berlin 2005. The focus of the study is the South African and Indian embassies in Berlin)
• Bernd Hettlage: Embassy of the Republic of South Africa Berlin . Stadtwandel-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-937123-07-5 . (Volume 49 of the series Die neue Architekturführer , plus publisher's website with further information)
• Dagmar Hoetzel: Embassy South Africa. Berlin . In: Bauwelt , Vol. 94, No. 47, December 12, 2003, ISSN  0005-6855 , p. 2.
• Susanne Kreykenbohm: Openly transparent - South Africa's embassy in Berlin . In: Deutsche BauZeitschrift , Vol. 51, No. 11, November 2003, ISSN  0011-4782 , p. 24.
• Cultural exchange - South African embassy in Berlin . In: AIT - architecture, interior design, technical expansion , ISSN  0173-8046 , vol. 111, 2003, issue no. 12, pp. 86-91.
• Jürgen Tietz: Republic of South Africa . In: Kerstin Englert, Jürgen Tietz (Hrsg.): Embassies in Berlin . 2nd Edition. Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-7861-2494-9 , pp. 194-195.

Web links

Commons : South African Embassy in Berlin  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Official website of the South African embassy in Germany , there information about the embassy building
• Embassy of South Africa in the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development (maps, photos of models, Black plans )
• Berlin embassies: Republic of South Africa on BauNetz.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Numbers and facts about the embassy ( memento of the original from April 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Stadtwandel publishing house. 
2. ↑ Tiergartenstrasse 18b . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1936, part 4, p. 866.
3. ↑ Katharina Fleischmann: Messages with messages . BIS-Verlag, Oldenburg 2008, p. 182.
4. ^ South African Embassy officially opened . In: Die Welt , November 15, 2003.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Katharina Fleischmann: Messages with messages . BIS-Verlag, Oldenburg 2008, p. 183.
6. ↑ Trade name "Naboomspruit Golden Dawn", a pale yellow, fine-grain sandstone that has been quarried at the Buffelskloof farm west of Naboomspruit since 1990. W. R. Oosterhuis (Ed.): Stone in Southern Africa . Unesco, Paris 1999, ISBN 92-3103620-3 . (At Fleischmann the sandstone is wrongly called "Sunrise".)
7. ↑ Katharina Fleischmann: Messages with messages . BIS-Verlag, Oldenburg 2008, p. 226.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 33.8 "  N , 13 ° 21 ′ 41.3"  E