Spanish embassy in Berlin

Main entrance of the Spanish Embassy, ​​on the right the office wing

The Spanish Embassy in Berlin is the headquarters of the diplomatic mission of Spain in Germany. It is located in the embassy district in the Berlin district of Tiergarten in the Mitte district . The mighty corner building in neoclassical style was built during the Nazi era and is a listed building .

architecture

The building of the Spanish Embassy is a two-wing building with an acute-angled floor plan and a sloping corner , in which the main entrance is located. The western wing (residential wing) is located on Thomas-Dehler-Straße and adjoins a curved building that housed the Danish legation in the 1940s . This is now part of the Nordic embassies in Rauchstrasse. The eastern wing is on Lichtensteinallee and is known as the office wing. The two wings enclose an acute-angled inner courtyard, which is designed with green areas.

The facade is executed in the representative, neoclassical style of the time. The ground floor is characterized by an ashlar banding as a base, the ashlar stones are smooth and not carved in the rustic style . There are three storeys above the ground floor, with the height of the windows decreasing towards the top. The main entrance on the corner of the building has a driveway for cars, which is covered by a mighty balcony on four pillars. At the height of the ribbon of windows on the third floor there is a relief with the Spanish coat of arms in the central axis of the building on the front side . After entering the house, the visitor comes into a stone-lined hall. From there you can reach the reception rooms via a representative staircase.

History of use and reconstruction

The new building of the Spanish Embassy in the zoo at the hairpin of Lichtensteinallee and Thomas-Dehler-Straße was planned by the brothers Walter and Johannes Krüger in 1938–1943 and built under their construction management. The Reichsbaudirektion Berlin , an authority of the Reich Ministry of Finance , acted as the client . Before the move to the new building, the Spanish Embassy Chancellery was located at Großadmiral-Prinz-Heinrich-Straße 21, today's Hitzigallee. As part of the development plan of the National Socialist chief architect Albert Speer and his authority General Building Inspectorate (GBI) for the construction of the " Capital Germania ", the area known today as the embassy quarter at the southern Tiergarten was declared a diplomatic quarter. Twelve embassy buildings were to be erected there in order to create space for the execution of Speer's plans in the government district near the Brandenburg Gate . During the Second World War , the office wing was badly destroyed by bombs .

The Spanish coat of arms above the main entrance

In the 1960s the building was rebuilt by the original architect Johannes Krüger, but the Spanish embassy was located in Bonn at Schloßstraße 4 as a result of the division of Germany . After the relocation of the capital's functions to Berlin, the Spanish embassy was also supposed to withdraw. For this purpose, the building was rebuilt and modernized from 1998 to 2003 under the direction of the Spanish architects Jesús Velasco Ruiz and José de Onzono y Angulo. The office wing was torn down and replaced by a historicizing new building with the old proportions. The residential wing on Thomas-Dehler-Straße was demolished and rebuilt except for the staircase and facade. The symbols of the Franco regime were removed everywhere, including the replacement of the coat of arms above the main entrance with the current state coat of arms. The traces of this exchange can still be seen in the lighter color of the natural stones that surround the coat of arms.

See also

• List of Spanish ambassadors in Germany

Web links

Commons : Spanish Embassy Berlin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Embassy of Spain (Press and Information Department, in German)
• Official homepage of the Embassy of Spain (in Spanish)
• Entry in the Berlin State Monument List

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Directory of authorities, Dept. 122 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1938, part 3, p. 12.
2. ↑ Hans J. Reichhardt and Wolfgang Schächen: From Berlin to Germania: about the destruction of the Reich capital by Albert Speer's redesign plans. Catalog for an exhibition at the Landesarchiv Berlin, November 7, 1984 to April 30, 1985. Landesarchiv, Berlin 1985.
3. ^ Wolfgang Schächen: Architecture and Urban Development in Berlin between 1933 and 1945. 2nd edition. Gebrüder Mann, Berlin 1992.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 37.6 "  N , 13 ° 20 ′ 43.7"  E