Victoria Insurance (Berlin-Kreuzberg)

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Former Victoria building at Lindenstrasse 20–25 (back: Alte Jakobstrasse 130–132) in Berlin-Kreuzberg

The Victoria Insurance is a listed building of the insurance company of the same name (now ErgoGroup ) in Lindenstraße in Berlin district of Kreuzberg .

History and function of the building

The building was built between 1893 and 1913 by the civil engineer Karl Bernhard according to plans by the architect Wilhelm Walther in the neo-baroque style. This ended a phase of around 50 years for the company, which was characterized by multiple moves within the Berlin urban area. It is said that the insurance company initially  rented a building at Französische Strasse 42 in 1860, only to acquire its own property seven years later at Markgrafenstrasse 63. In 1875 the company moved to Mohrenstrasse  45; but here too there was soon insufficient space. The number of employees also grew as a result of the increasing number of contracts concluded in accident insurance and national insurance: while around 100 employees worked for Victoria in 1888, there were already 500 in 1896 and over 1000 in 1903. So they looked again for a larger building and finally found what they were looking for in southern Friedrichstadt.

Victoria building around 1900

In 1892 the properties at Lindenstrasse 20 and 21 and Alte Jakobstrasse 131 were acquired, and in May 1893 the house at Lindenstrasse 22. The main building was then built from 1893 to 1895. The move took place on January 30th, 1895. In 1896 the plots at Alte Jakobstrasse 130 and 132 were bought and thus expanded the existing building until 1897. In 1904 the properties at Lindenstrasse 23, 24 and 25 were also acquired. On the 50th anniversary of the insurance, the complete new building was finally inaugurated, which was expanded several times in the following years up to 1913. A comparatively advanced facility for that time was central heating , which supplied the entire building with heat. There were also hydraulic and electric elevators with which files were transported. Continuous lighting with incandescent lamps was also new for this time. There was a registry in which over 23 million names were recorded. Around 250 kg of mail was sent every day, some of which was created and franked in the in-house print shop. In 1908 a casino was built for the employees on the fourth floor of Lindenstrasse 24/25 , in order to give the unmarried civil servants the opportunity, when the office was closed, to have a fresh, simple but hearty meal consisting of soup, meat, plenty of vegetables and Ingesting potatoes ”. During the November Revolution of 1918-1919, the canteen was closed because the general manager of the insurance company, Richard Utech , was upset that his employees were being prevented from entering the building by picket lines . Until 1935 the house housed the Soviet trade agency . At that time, the chairman of the supervisory board, Otto Gerstenberg (1848–1935), kept part of his private art collection in the building for reasons of space. This decision turned out to be fatal because the building was badly damaged in an Allied air raid on February 3, 1945 during World War II - the collection fell victim to the flames. According to reports, the fires were so violent that the fire department in Lindenstrasse was on duty for four days. As a result of the effects of the war, a large number of other houses and businesses in the graphic arts industry that had settled here in the former newspaper district were destroyed.

In the 1950s, the building was temporarily used by the Soviet military administration to process the documents required for the export of machines and systems to the Soviet Union . With the construction of the wall, this part of Berlin sank into a deep sleep; the insurance company relocated the new head office to Düsseldorf . Previously, two companies had already been founded there in 1923 because they feared that “as a Berlin company it would be cut off from business activities in West Germany, which was then French-occupied”. In 1979 the building was finally sold. New impulses in this area did not emerge until the International Building Exhibition in the 1980s. In October 1977, for example, a free planning group in Berlin published guidelines for the development of the Tiergarten district and southern Friedrichstadt. For streets that are in an east-west direction, such as the neighboring Ritterstraße , a low roadside of three to four floors should be provided, while on Lindenstraße up to six floors were planned to match the old eaves heights and the like. a. of the Victoria Building. To the north of the building there is therefore also a new building, which was built by the architects Group 67 as part of the “Experiment Wohnen - Konzepta Ritterstraße” project. In the southern area, the Am Berlin Museum residential park was built by Hans Kollhoff and Arthur Ovaska as the winner of an architectural competition . The plan was to close the gap between the Berlin Museum (today: Jewish Museum) and Victoria Insurance by means of a closed perimeter block development . Finally, between 1984 and 1986, a number of individual buildings were built in the street Am Berlin Museum , which are known as city ​​villas . The aim was to show an “urban reorganization of the eastern edge of Südliche Friedrichstrasse in the area of ​​tension between the Wilhelmine building parts of the former Victoria Insurance, the baroque Berlin Museum and the warehouse of the glass cooperative”.

Today, a media college, the regional association of Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , Spastikerhilfe Berlin and the foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” can be found in the building.

Architecture of the building

Entry portal for insurance with a central risk

In its final expansion in 1913, the building had a facade length of 129.24 meters. The total area of ​​the property is 16,223 m², the built area is 10,671.66 m². The depth of the property from Lindenstrasse to Alte Jakobstrasse is 180 meters. This floor plan resulted in a total of twelve inner courtyards, of which courtyard I is the largest. It can be entered through a gate from Lindenstrasse. The ground floor and the first floor are designed with a boss . The other floors, with the exception of the stacked floor , are clad with Bavarian shell limestone , which was decorated with elements from the Renaissance . The entrance portal is adorned by two mighty pilasters and a large central risalit on which the name of the insurance company was carved. Above this is a balcony, which is framed by the pilasters that extend to the fifth floor and thus visually structure the facade vertically. The individual floors are separated horizontally from one another by a cornice . The entrance to Courtyard I, the largest of the total of twelve courtyards in terms of area, is noticeable through a wrought-iron grille over which four symbolic figures are attached: Industria, Commercium, Artes and Scienta . They are reminiscent of the interaction between business and science as well as commerce and art in the early modern period . Both combine with each other and "help [...] each other to achieve a new quality, reinforce their inherent dynamics and achieve previously unfamiliar dimensions". Above that there are other baroque elements in floral ornamentation. The inner courtyards are mostly clad with red sandstone. The passage from Lindenstrasse to Courtyard I, which has already been described, is particularly noticeable: on the ground floor, four caryatids each end in a capital on which four boys stand. They in turn frame an astronomical clock , which is no longer functional.

Others

Astronomical clock in courtyard I.

The large number of employees posed new challenges for the administration of Victoria Insurance. House rules were therefore issued and staff, so-called house inspectors, were assigned to ensure compliance with the rules. For example, an offense committed by an employee in 1902 has been handed down, which was documented as follows: “Mr. K. slept at his workplace yesterday afternoon. I have had to notice this very often, but believed that Mr K. would get used to it. " The employees were also instructed to use a specific, pre-determined entrance gate to enter the building. This made it possible to determine whether someone was late for work. For this purpose, a large clock was installed in courtyard I, which was modeled on the Ulm town hall clock . Another regulation came into force in 1911 and stipulated when an employee was allowed to marry: “We reserve the right to continue the contractual relationship with the provision of proof of a family if a civil servant is married and whose salary is not yet sufficient Making sufficient income dependent. ”In addition to these seemingly unusual rules nowadays, the insurance company was also interested in the well-being of its employees. For example, a grocery store was set up in the building, where they could buy everyday goods at a purchase price .

  • Main entrance to the former Victoria Insurance

  • Passage courtyard I to Lindenstrasse

  • Side entrance with Victoria figure

  • Side wing in courtyard I.

  • Decorations on the facade of Lindenstrasse

literature

  • Arno Surminski: In the train of the times. 150 years of VICTORIA. 1853–2003 , Victoria Insurance Companies, Düsseldorf, 1st edition, 2003, ISBN 3-00-011767-9 .
  • Arnt Cobbers: Architekturführer - The 100 most important Berlin buildings , Jaron Verlag, Berlin, 5th edition, April 2006, ISBN 978-3-89773-135-6 .
  • Bauausstellung Berlin GmbH: International Building Exhibition Berlin 1987 - Project overview , Berlin, 1st edition, 1987.
  • Senator for Construction and Housing and Concepta Group, Berlin (ed.): Experiment Wohnen - Konzepta Ritterstraße , Berlin, 1981, ISBN 3-88531-105-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Arno Surminski: In the train of times. 150 years of VICTORIA. 1853-2003 . Victoria Insurance Companies, Düsseldorf, 2003
  2. ^ Karl Schlögel : The Russian Berlin. Munich 2007, p. 155
  3. ↑ On the history of Lindenstrasse on the Berlin-Brandenburg education server, accessed on November 28, 2011.
  4. ↑ leaflet. (PDF) Initiative Historisches Zeitungsviertel; Retrieved November 26, 2011.
  5. ^ East trade: where business ends . In: Der Spiegel . No. 39 , 1950 ( online ).
  6. ↑ VICTORIA insurance companies are celebrating their 150th anniversary today ( Memento of the original from January 10, 2012 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. at definance.de, accessed on November 30, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.definance.de
  7. ↑ Notes ( Memento of the original dated February 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on dm-aktie.de; Retrieved October 8, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dm-aktie.de
  8. ↑ a b Experiment Living - Concept Ritterstraße . Senator for Construction and Housing and the Concepta Group, Berlin
  9. ↑ Wohnpark Am Berlin Museum ( Memento of the original from March 23, 2011 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 berlin.de; Retrieved November 24, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.berlin.de
  10. ↑ International Building Exhibition Berlin 1987 - project overview . 1st edition. Bauausstellung Berlin GmbH, Berlin 1987, p. 178
  11. ^ Website of the regional association Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen. ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2010 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. Retrieved October 8, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gruene-berlin.de
  12. ^ The business building of Victoria zu Berlin Allgemeine Versicherungs-Actien-Gesellschaft on a scale of 1: 350
  13. ↑ Johannes Fried: Art and Commerce - About the interaction of science and economy in the Middle Ages, primarily using the example of merchants and trade fairs . (PDF; 1.35 MB) In: Writings of the Historisches Kolleg. Lecture number 32, Munich 1993

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 14.2 "  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 47.1"  E