Beer brush

Tower restaurant Steglitz ; Bierpinsel
	Beer brush, 2017
Basic data
Place:	Berlin-Steglitz
Construction time :	1972-1976
Opening:	October 13, 1976
Architectural style :	futurism
Architects :	Ralf Schüler ; Ursulina Schüler-Witte
Use / legal
Usage :	restaurant
Owner :	Schloss-Turm GmbH
Client :	Depreciation KG, move
Technical specifications
Height :	47 m
Floors :	4th
Usable area :	about 1000 m²
Building-costs:	10.8 million marks

The beer brush, 2008

The so-called Bierpinsel (with the Steglitz tower restaurant ) is a 47 meter high building with a futuristic -looking pop architecture from the 1970s in the Berlin district of Steglitz . The popular name comes from the Berlin vernacular ; the association of the architects who designed the building was a tree . The building has been a listed building since January 2017 .

The building

Architectural detail

The tower restaurant Steglitz , which opened on October 13, 1976, is a 47 meter high tower with a polygonal structure and a stair tower. The building was built between 1972 and 1976 according to plans by the architects Ralf Schüler and Ursulina Schüler-Witte , who also designed the ICC Berlin . It is integrated into the Joachim-Tiburtius-Brücke , which at this point spans the Steglitzer Schloßstraße on Franz-Amrehn-Platz in the form of an expressway.

The aim of the designs by Schüler and Schüler-Witte was to soften the dominant character of the Hochstraße, which was laid out as a south-eastern extension of Schildhornstraße , and to integrate it into the urban structure in combination with the tower. The uniform design from the underground, in the form of the two stacked platforms of the Schloßstraße underground station , to the tower above the streets of the city is unique . The design element for the entire building complex was the exposed concrete with red plastic cladding or paint. It is part of the pop art trend and one of the few architectural art products that have survived from the 1970s.

The popular name Bierpinsel , a classic Berolinism , which is also used as a label on the tower building, was given to it by the Berliners during its construction period, inspired by the shaving-brush-like appearance of the steel girders of the supporting structure rising into the sky and the planned gastronomic use. The beer brush is one of the landmarks of Steglitz.

use

The beer brush , which was known as “bankruptcy building” , was initially empty and it was difficult to find a tenant. It was not until mid-1976 that a Berlin businessman was found who (initially with two partners) successfully built a beer and wine vault on the bottom floor until 1980 , the Bierpinsel steak house on the second floor with one of the first salad bars in Germany and the large tower on the third floor. Café operated on two levels. Administration and storage rooms were located on the top fourth floor. The weekly radio program, Second Breakfast with John Hendrik, was recorded by RIAS in the Turm-Café and broadcast a week later.

In 1980 the Wienerwald chain acquired the Bierpinsel as a supplement to their Tourotel (today: Best Western- Steglitz International) at the end of Schloßstraße. The land of Berlin is the owner of the property on which the beer brush stands. The respective buyers of the building must conclude a leasehold contract with the State of Berlin .

In the years that followed, no business could last long and the building's owners changed frequently. In the meantime, the building outside and inside required considerable maintenance and modernization; In 2002 the beer brush was temporarily closed for this reason. From February 2003 to March 2006 there was a disco and a sports bar in the building. In 2008 the current owner bought the beer brush in order to be able to run it again. During its renovation, she rented it out to private organizers. Among other things, an art café opened temporarily on April 1, 2010 in Bierpinsel. At the same time, international street artists started to redesign the facade of the beer brush for a year .

In general, the building is to be used again for restaurants and events. After water damage occurred in the winter of 2010/2011 after a pipe burst caused by frost, a dispute between the insurance company and the owners is now preventing the renovation and thus delaying a new use. It was originally planned to restore the original red exterior paintwork at the beginning of 2012. According to the owners, a new coat of paint is not possible until it is clarified whether the facade may have been damaged by the burst pipe. However, this statement is questionable because after the damage became known, street artists still redesigned the facade in spring 2011. According to the Tagesspiegel , the restaurateurs at Bar Tausend , among others , expressed interest in using the premises .

The time of reopening is still unknown, because the dispute between the insurance company and the owners was still not resolved in September 2015.

In the Netflix series Dogs of Berlin , the beer brush serves as the headquarters of the LKA-Berlin .

In August 2017, the property was offered for sale on Sotheby’s website for 3.2 million euros. After this failed, however, Schlossturm GmbH (as of 2019) plans to convert the property: the focus should no longer be on catering, but on offices. The target group are start-up companies in particular . For this purpose, coworking spaces are planned on three floors . The gastronomic use, however, should take a back seat, only a single public café is planned.

literature

Lukas Foljanty: The Steglitz - Bierpinsel transport hub • Schloßstraße underground station • Joachim-Tiburtius-Brücke - The first work by Ralf Schüler and Ursulina Schüler-Witte . Universitätsverlag of the Technical University of Berlin, ISR gray series, issue 30. Berlin 2011. ISBN 978-3-7983-2282-0 ( full text ).
Larissa Laternser (ed.), JUST (photos): Tower art. Street Art XXL . Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-89773-633-7 .
Nikolai Roskamm, Ursula Flecken (Ed.): Fly over Bierpinsel: Post-Oil-City-Megastructure-Designing. Urban Design Workshop 2010 . University publishing house of the Technical University of Berlin, ISR gray series, issue 29. Berlin 2010. ISBN 978-3-7983-2281-3 ( full text ).
Ursulina Schüler-Witte: Ralf Schüler and Ursulina Schüler-Witte. A work-oriented biography of the architects of the ICC . Berlin (Lukas Verlag), 2015. ISBN 978-3-86732-212-6 .