State Council building

State Council building
View from the west of the front facade, 2009
Data
place	Berlin center
architect	Roland Korn and Hans Erich Bogatzky
Client	State Council of the GDR
Architectural style	Modern
Construction year	1962-1964
Coordinates	52 ° 30 '56 "  N , 13 ° 24' 4"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '56 "  N , 13 ° 24' 4"  E
particularities
Built-in Portal IV of the Berlin Palace

The Council of State building at Schlossplatz 1 in Berlin district of Mitte is the former official residence of the State of the GDR . Erected in the years 1962–1964 by Roland Korn and Hans-Erich Bogatzky in the modern style , it was the first new government building in the city center after the Second World War . The historic portal IV of the castle, which was blown up in 1950, is built into the facade of the three-storey steel frame building , which is clad with gray sandstone and red rhyolite ( Löbejun porphyry ) . Since 2006 the monument has been home to the European School of Management and Technology .

location

The State Council building is bordered to the north by Schloßplatz and the former street An der Stechbahn , to the east by Breite Straße , to the south by a green area on Sperlingsgasse / Neumannsgasse and to the west by the Spree Canal .

The State Council building was erected behind the site of the “Hirsch'schen Schneider Academy Berlin”, also popularly known as the “Red Palace”, which was largely destroyed in the Second World War. After the fall of the Wall in the GDR , ThyssenKrupp was awarded the contract on this property at a low price and wanted to build the ThyssenKrupp House there as a representative office in the capital, which was rejected in 2012 after great public pressure.

prehistory

After the death of the first and only President of the GDR , Wilhelm Pieck , the Council of State of the GDR was created in 1960 as the successor to the office of President as the officially highest state organ in the republic. The state structure of the GDR was thus further aligned with the Soviet model. The basis was the "Law on the Formation of the Council of State" of September 12, 1960, which amended the 1949 constitution of the GDR accordingly.

The State Council consisted of the chairman, his deputies, 16 other members and a secretary. The State Council had a total of 23 members. After its establishment, the State Council initially had its seat in Schönhausen Palace , where Wilhelm Pieck had previously resided as President of the GDR. It was not until 1964 that the State Council moved into the specially built State Council building at “Marx-Engels-Platz 1” (again “Schloßplatz” since 1994) in the city center of Berlin, where it remained until it was dissolved. The first Chairman of the State Council was Walter Ulbricht , who was also First Secretary of the Central Committee (ZK) of the SED and Chairman of the National Defense Council (NVR) of the GDR . The new concentration of power in the hands of Ulbricht was now to be moved visibly from the outskirts of the city to the center, so that the first representative government building in the GDR was erected with the new construction of the planned State Council building. After the site had been leveled in 1961, construction began the following year. For this purpose, 800 concrete bored piles were driven into the muddy subsoil in order to create a sufficient foundation for the steel frame construction with natural stone cladding.

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  Cathedral church instead of Schloßplatz , around 1730

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  "Red Lock" on the lock bridge , around 1880

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  Development (left edge of the picture, center) instead of the State Council building, around 1900

architecture

Exterior design

Built-in Portal IV of the Berlin Palace

The architecture of the building can be seen as the first expression of the stylistic objectivity in the GDR architecture of the 1960s. The architect collective around Roland Korn and Hans Erich Bogatzky laid the foundation stone for the new so-called "GDR or East Modern " with the State Council building as a prototype . The architects Korn and Bogatzky developed the planning while retaining a preliminary design for the facade by Josef Kaiser . The cladding of the facade with high, rectangular banner-like fields made of red rhyolite should evoke associations with the red flag , the political identification symbol of the socialist and communist movement.

The former Portal IV of the Berlin Palace is asymmetrically integrated into the facade (seven axes to the east, three axes to the west) . By spring 1951, the palace portals IV and V facing the pleasure garden had been left standing during the blasting work. They wanted to salvage Portal V, in front of which Karl Liebknecht had proclaimed the “socialist republic” on November 9, 1918 , during the upcoming demolition in order to reuse it in a state building that was yet to be built. From the balcony of Portal V, Kaiser Wilhelm II had already announced the entry of the German Empire into the First World War on August 1, 1914 . During the demolition, straw mats were laid out in front of Portal V so that the components that should fall on it could be reused. But after the blasting, only broken sandstone chunks were found on the straw. Portal V was lost and the portal IV, which had been left standing as an alternative, was now laboriously dismantled by hand in order to then output it as Portal V.

The asymmetrical alignment of the portal within the State Council building is based on the former course of the Petrikirche - Brüderstraße - Schlossplatz - Schloss Freiheit axis . This road axis was interrupted by the construction of the State Council building. The remaining part of the Brüderstraße runs as a visual axis almost towards the glass back of the risalit of the State Council building. The front of the risalit is the end point of the road that formerly ran along the Kaiser Wilhelm National Monument.

The medieval Dominican monastery church or the later Berlin Cathedral was located directly in front of the part of the State Council building on the left of the portal risalites.

Both inside, the height of the storeys and in its external appearance, the State Council building corresponds to the dimensions of the northern side facade of the former palace, in which Portal IV to the Lustgarten was originally inserted. The portal, which was re-established as a defining element of the front facade of the State Council building more than ten years after the castle was finally blown up in 1950, consists of only one fifth of original parts.

Portal IV was created between 1706 and 1713 by Johann Friedrich Eosander von Göthe as a repetition of Portal V by Andreas Schlueter from 1698 to 1706 . The portal projection is divided into three axes and has three floors and a mezzanine floor . Each floor is framed by pilasters. The large balcony on the main floor is supported by atlas thermal baths , which Balthasar Permoser from Dresden created between 1706 and 1708. The Atlashermen are male allegories of autumn with vines and hunting prey (left) and the winter with fur and carnival masks with musical instruments (right). The arched , rosette- decorated balcony window in the style of a Venetian window is crowned by a coat of arms cartouche , which today contains the dates "1713" and "1963". Originally the Prussian eagle coat of arms was located here and a royal crown above it. The cartouche is flanked by two winged, trombone- blowing female Fama deities. The portal is completed at the top by an attic . The four original statues (outside two male, inside two female ancient deities) on the pedestals of the attic were not reconstructed during the new building in the 1960s. Likewise, the grilles of the two ground floor windows and the magnificent baroque grille of the entrance are missing . The latter was replaced by a grid with diagonal crosses. A cartridge under the balcony was also not reconstructed. All plate panels come from the construction of the State Council building 1962-1964, as the original parts by artillery fire of the Second World War had suffered. The plastic parts are originals from the Baroque period; however, they have also been restored. The work was carried out by the VEB "Stucco and Natural Stone Berlin". The missing parts were added in Elbe sandstone .

The integration of the famous balcony into the State Council building took place as a kind of relic-like symbol for the realization of Karl Liebknecht's goals and the November Revolution in the form of the socialist GDR. This claim is underlined by a building-high glass picture by the artist Walter Womacka in the foyer and staircase, which depicts the history of the labor movement in Germany from the perspective of the SED . In it, the socialist Spartakusbund Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht is linked with the traditional labor movement, the highest stage of which one wanted to see in the GDR.

As part of the preliminary planning for the reconstruction of the Berlin City Palace, parts of the Liebknecht portal were scanned three-dimensionally, a high-resolution overall model of the portal was created and physical prototypes were made, since the portal is to be a copy of the new city palace to be built. Furthermore, certain areas such as the rosettes, the herms and geniuses were released as individual 3D models and prepared for physical production.

Interior design

Lobby in the State Council building, 1964

The characteristic veneer walls of the State Council building (reception of US Ambassador Ridgway by Honecker , 1983)

The entrance hall, intended for the state representation, was reached through the portal. A large-scale stairwell with colored glazing, spacious foyers, large halls and hall-like functional rooms determine the spatial impression of the building.

The offices of the six deputy chairman of the State Council were on the ground floor. The office of the President of the State Council was on the first floor, where the meeting room of the State Council and the reception room for the foreign diplomats were also located. The second floor housed the ballroom with its state emblem of the GDR made from a million mosaic stones and the adjoining hall for state banquets and the club hall. The banquet hall was decorated with a 35-meter-long picture frieze made of Meissen porcelain designed by Günther Brendel . Hans-Erich Bogatzky and Bruno Hess were responsible for the interior design .

All office spaces were lined with their own type of veneer, which was then consistently maintained from the built-in cupboards to the baseboards. The interior with all the furniture was designed and executed by Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau and VEB “Edelholzbau Berlin”.

For important rooms, artists created works tailored to the function. Examples of this are the glass painting "Representations from the history of the German labor movement" in the large staircase by Walter Womacka , an etched steel wall by Fritz Kühn in the meeting room of the Council of State and the wall frieze Life in the GDR made of Meissen porcelain in Günther Brendel's banquet hall. Fritz Kühn also designed the metal work on the doors to the diplomatic hall, as well as the radiator cladding and railings in the stairwell.

The State Council's office was located in the side wing of the State Council building on Breite Straße . Here, too, all items of equipment came from manufacturers in the GDR.

Garden area

The listed gardens with the mosaic-adorned fountain basin and the forecourt of the State Council building were laid out in 1964 according to the design of the garden architect Hubert Matthes .

Usage history

The State Council building should be completed on the 15th anniversary of the founding of the GDR. On October 3, 1964, Walter Ulbricht, as the landlord, symbolically received the house key from the architect at 11 a.m. Four days later, on October 7, 1964, the state anniversary reception was held in the new State Council building with the new party leader of the CPSU and the Soviet head of state Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev .

From its completion until April 5, 1990, the building served its intended purpose. As chairman of the State Council worked successively in the building Walter Ulbricht (until 1973), Willi Stoph , (1973-1976) Erich Honecker (1976-1989) Egon Krenz (24 October 1989 to 6 December 1989) and finally Manfred Gerlach ( December 6, 1989 to April 5, 1990).

A special table setting was used at state receptions of the German Democratic Republic in the State Council building. The manufacturer of the porcelain was the Thuringian manufacturer Graf von Henneberg . The brand of the place setting is named by the Reichenbach porcelain factory in Vogtland . In this work, however, only the decor and the glaze were created. Since Reichenbacher porcelain represented the best quality in the GDR and was therefore easier to sell abroad, this stamping was chosen. The glasses for sparkling wine, wine and mineral water were manufactured in the VEB Glaswerk Döbern . The crystal glass series for state receptions was produced from 1968 to 1989, because re-orders had to be re-ordered again and again. The associated cutlery was designed in the neo-rococo style.

In the years after 1990 the representative building was not used in a regulated manner. In the meantime, there was an information center of the Federal Ministry of Construction on the capital redevelopment in the premises. From 1999 until the completion of the new Federal Chancellery at the Reichstag building in 2001, the then Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had his Berlin office in the State Council building. In 2001 the band Rammstein shot the music video for their song Ich will here . The European School of Management and Technology (ESMT Berlin) has been using the building of the former State Council since the beginning of 2006 . It was made available by the State of Berlin under leasehold .

On the back of the never issued banknote for 500  GDR marks was a picture of the house.

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  View of the State Council building from the northeast, 2009

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  View from the southeast with garden and fountain, 2009

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  State Council building nearing completion, 1964

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  Night view, 1964

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  View of the ballroom with Walter Ulbricht , 1968

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  View of the conference room with Erich Honecker , 1981

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  View of the banquet hall, 1981

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  Table setting from the State Council building, exhibited in Schönhausen Palace

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  State council building on the never circulated banknote for 500  marks of the GDR

Renovation and renovation

The building, which has been a listed building since 1993, was completely refurbished from 2003 to 2005 for 35 million euros and converted for university purposes. The executive architect was Hans-Günter Merz . The symbols of power of the GDR have been preserved during the renovation, including the listed glass picture by Womacka and a mosaic of the GDR national coat of arms with hammer and compass based on a design by Heinrich Jungebloedt in a lecture hall.

The most important structural intervention was the installation of a new safety staircase. The conflict between the interests of the new user and the conservation interests of the monument office lay primarily in the large-scale room layouts of the State Council building and the university's requirement for numerous small work and seminar rooms. The preservation of monuments managed to preserve the large foyers as well as the representative rooms, which were preserved in their design and, with one exception, in their size. Only the ballroom on the second floor was divided into two lecture halls by a reversible, transparent partition. To set up small work rooms, the areas of the functional and work rooms as well as the smaller conference rooms were converted and an additional room level was partially added to the courtyard facade on the first floor.

See also

• List of cultural monuments in Berlin-Mitte / Alt-Kölln

literature

• The architectural and art monuments in the GDR: Capital Berlin. 2nd, unchanged edition. Volume I, Institute for Monument Preservation, Berlin 1984, DNB 840910061 , pp. 88-90. (edited by a collective from the Research Department (Ingrid Bartmann-Kompa, Horst Büttner, Horst Drescher, Joachim Fait, Marina Flügge, Gerda Herrmann, Ilse Schröder, Helmut Spielmann, Christa Stepansky, Heinrich Trost), general editor Heinrich Trost)
• Philipp Meuser: Schlossplatz Eins: European School of Management and Technology = Schlossplatz One: European School of Management and Technology. DOM Publishers, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-938666-03-X .

Web links

Commons : State Council building  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry in the Berlin State Monument List with further information
• Renate Fuchs: House without tenants. In: Die Zeit , No. 14/2001

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Berlin archive. Divided Berlin. Braunschweig (no year), p. B 05300.
2. ↑ Bernd Stöver: The reconstruction of the city. In: History of Berlin. C. H. Beck Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-406-60067-8 , p. 89 f.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Landesdenkmalamt Berlin: State Council building. (berlin.de , accessed February 20, 2019)
4. ^ Dieter Dreetz: Armed fighting in Germany 1918–1923. Military Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1988, p. 15. Here it says: “After Karl Liebknecht had placed the castle under the protection of the Berlin Workers' and Soldiers' Council, he called out to the cheering people while standing on a car: 'The day of the revolution has come. […] At this hour we proclaim the free, socialist republic of Germany. We greet our Russian brothers. '"
5. ^ Marc Metzger: The Berlin Palace. 2nd updated edition. Berlin Story Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-95723-101-7 , pp. 40–41.
6. ^ Dietmar and Ingmar Arnold: Schloss Freiheit. At the gates of the city palace. Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-930863-33-2 .
7. ^ Richard Schneider: The Berlin Palace in historical photographs. Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86732-164-8 , p. 108.
8. ^ The architectural and art monuments in the GDR: Capital Berlin. 2nd Edition. Volume I, Institute for Monument Preservation, Berlin 1984, pp. 88–90. (edited by a collective from the Research Department (Ingrid Bartmann-Kompa, Horst Büttner, Horst Drescher, Joachim Fait, Marina Flügge, Gerda Herrmann, Ilse Schröder, Helmut Spielmann, Christa Stepansky, Heinrich Trost), general editor Heinrich Trost)
9. ^ Liebknechtportal, accessed on February 24, 2018.