French street underground station
The Französische Straße underground station is a station on the Berlin underground line U6 in the Mitte district . It is located below the Friedrichstrasse / Französische Strasse intersection and was opened as one of the first large-profile stations on January 30, 1923. When BVG he is under the symbol Fr performed.
history
prehistory
Even before the First World War , the capital of the Reich wanted to build an urban subway independent of the existing network of the elevated railway company . The first route was to be a north-south connection under Friedrichstrasse, which should branch off in the south. In order to increase the capacity compared to the elevated railway cars, vehicles up to 2.65 meters wide - compared to 2.35 meters with the elevated railway company - should be used. Even today, the vehicle dimensions of the Berlin subway are therefore divided into large and small profiles.
The first work could already begin at the end of 1912. From the north it went in stages, the first sections around Leopoldplatz could be completed as early as 1914. However, the outbreak of the First World War in the same year increasingly delayed further construction until it came to a complete standstill in 1917. Up to this point in time, the stretch to the Oranienburger Tor was complete and the shell to the Hallescher Tor was partially completed.
Interwar period
Three years after the construction freeze, the question arose how to proceed with the ruins. The consequences of the First World War and the rising inflation made further construction almost impossible, so that even the consideration arose to fill in the already completed sections. However, since this solution would have been more expensive than an at least provisional operation, further construction was pursued - albeit with enormous savings measures.
The Nord-Süd-Bahn AG , which was wholly owned by the city of Berlin, was finally founded in 1921 for the operation . However, the company quickly got into a financial crisis because despite cost-cutting measures, for example in decorating the train stations, there were hardly any funds left for a fleet of vehicles. After numerous negotiations, an agreement was finally reached with the elevated railway company; this provided 50 cars for the new route, which had to be converted for large-profile operation.
Since the originally planned Heinrich Jennen and Walter Köppen had died in the meantime, the Swede Alfred Grenander was appointed as the architect . He had previously been entrusted with the construction of several stations for the elevated railway company. The stations below Friedrichstrasse were almost all built according to the same scheme.
Grenander wanted to give each station its own color for identification , as it did at the stations on today's U2 line . The color sequence green-white-red-yellow-blue was chosen along the route, the station Französische Straße was assigned green as the color code. However, the financial emergency did not allow the station to be decorated, for example the walls are still only plastered and not tiled. In order to still bring some color into play, the frames of the advertising space and station signs as well as the pillars were painted in the respective station colors.
The station was opened on January 30, 1923. It is located as a sub-paved station with a central platform at a simple depth and has a total of four exits on the central reservation of Friedrichstrasse. The platform was 80 meters long until it was extended in the 1990s.
In 1939 there were initial plans to expand the station to the tower station as a crossing station with line E (today: line U5 ). The expansion of the subway network pursued by the National Socialists in the course of the planning for the world capital Germania envisaged an extension of line E along König - and Französische Strasse to Moabit . However, there were also alternative routes for this line along the Unter den Linden street or the tram viaduct .
post war period
After the end of the Second World War , the underground station was located in the Soviet sector of Berlin, later East Berlin . However, since both the northern and southern endpoints of the line running there were in West Berlin , after the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the underground trains ran through the station without stopping. Until 1990 the station was one of the " ghost stations " of the West Berlin S-Bahn and U-Bahn in the East Berlin underground.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the idea of a tower station reappeared. On the one hand, line E should again be extended along Französische Strasse to Friedrichstrasse. On the other hand, in the 1980s there was the idea of using the section of the U6 line running under East Berlin for the East Berlin subway network. Alternatively, this should either be reduced to the sections in West Berlin or be routed through a second, lower-lying express tunnel. As a first measure, a connecting tunnel from line A (today: U2) to the tunnel of the U6 was dug at the Stadtmitte underground station . Before this could be completed, however, the plans became obsolete due to German reunification . The tunnel was later filled in again.
After 1990
The metro station reopened on July 1, 1990 , just in time for monetary union . In the following years, the BVG , financed by the State of Berlin, the federal government and the EU , restored the original condition and at the same time extended the platforms from 80 to 110 meters so that even 6-car trains could stop at the platform. The station received its decagonal access transparencies over the entrances, as designed by Grenander in 1923 for the line. In contrast to the other stations on the U6, however, the station did not have a lift; The background to this was the extension of the U5 underground line along the Unter den Linden boulevard , which was already being planned .
outlook
The Französische Straße underground station is expected to be closed in 2020. The reason for this is the short distance from the Unter den Linden underground station, which is currently under construction, as part of the extension of the U5 underground line from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate . This station will be the junction with the existing U6 line, and its opening is planned for 2020. The Französische Straße underground station will remain as a building after its closure, but will then be passed through without stopping. There is no decision about the numerous ideas for re-using the facility.
Connection
At the underground station you can change from line U6 to bus line 147 of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe .
Web links
- BVG map of the station (PDF; 220 kB)
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List with further information
- More pictures on untergrundbahn.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Berlin's subway stations. French street ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on berliner-untergrundbahn.de
- ↑ End of the shuttle service in sight . In: Berliner Zeitung , July 6, 1996
- ↑ Closing the gap - Newsletter June 2011. (PDF) Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe , archived from the original on November 29, 2014 ; Retrieved November 17, 2014 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 53 ″ N , 13 ° 23 ′ 21 ″ E