Villa district on Lake Orankesee
The villa quarter in the Berlin district of Alt-Hohenschönhausen is located in the Lichtenberg district on the border with the Pankow district and is characterized by two smaller lakes with their parks. It belongs to the Barnimer Feldmark Regional Park with its characteristic fields, alleys, gullies, ditches and anger villages with their ponds.
origin
It is named after the 3.9-hectare Orankesee , which is part of an Ice Age chain of lakes that runs from the upper Barnim down to the Berlin glacial valley on the Spree . Its neighbor, the Obersee , on the other hand, is of artificial origin. To the north is the public park Der Faule See . The term orange goes back to the Slavic period before the founding of the Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1157 by Albrecht the Bear and the subsequent expansion of the Ascanian margraves . The Slavic Roderanke , Ruda or Ranke means red-brown lake or lake on red-brown terrain and indicates the color of the lawn iron stone floors in this part of the Barnim plateau. A lido with a 300 meter long sandy beach was built on the lake in 1929.
The slightly smaller neighbor Obersee is an artificial lake that was filled in by the Löwen Brewery in 1895 to secure the water requirement in a lowland. The Obersee got its name because its water level is around one and a half meters above that of the Orankesees .
The old Slavic name also lives on in the former Oranke-Gymnasium (now Manfred von Ardenne-Gymnasium), TSV Oranke sports club, an allotment garden colony, various shops and in the street names Orankeweg, Orankestrand and Orankestrasse.
history
The quarter was created from 1892 as a result of the subdivision of the area by the entrepreneur Gerhard Puchmüller and later his successor Henry Suermondt . The first villas were built at the southern end of the Orankesees, the second around 1900 on the Obersee, which was built in 1895. The area was advertised for its excellent location and well-developed infrastructure. It was successful because the population increased dramatically, between 1905 and 1910 alone it doubled from around 1750 to just under 3,500 residents. In addition to the numerous villas, a few excursion restaurants were also built around the lakes, the best known was on Orankesee, where the lido of the same name opened a short time later. Not least because of this, the quarter was given the nickname “Wannsee of the North” in the 1920s.
In the 1930s, industrialists, artists and other wealthy people increasingly settled here. Some representative new buildings in the style of the time followed. The Bauhaus architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe built the Mies van der Rohe house on Oberseestrasse in 1932/1933 on behalf of a merchant family . The eminent development was also noticed by political interest groups. The NSDAP maintained its party headquarters for Hohenschönhausen at Orankestrasse 86/87. After the war, this became the police registration office No. 78, responsible for the area that was shielded from 1945 until the reunification . “They were the private refuge of high employees of the Ministry of State Security, who had been awarded the villas for their services to the party; often with the means of sovereign expropriation of the owner. "
The Ministry for State Security (MfS) maintained its own facilities with administration, supply and sports facilities in the preferred residential area, parts of the area and the lakes were shielded with high fences. Some of these systems had independent water and electricity supplies. A number of high-ranking employees had their domiciles in the quarter, such as Erich Mielke's son and the head of commercial coordination (KoKo) Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski . Mielke herself also had a guest house on the Obersee.
Conditions for the listed Mies van der Rohe house were ignored. The property and structural problems that arose from what were supposedly around 2,700 Stasi objects in the past have not yet been fully clarified or resolved.
In the meantime, the district has become one of the district's flagships again. Nevertheless, there is not complete satisfaction among the residents. The “Friends of the Upper and Orankesee”, which they founded, therefore developed a concept in 2007 to redesign the two former villa colonies. For a total of 10 million euros, a visual axis is to be created between the two lakes, new trees will be planted and nature trails created. The streets are also to be repaired and the lighting replaced. Ateliers are planned around the two bodies of water.
The whole concept is to be implemented largely from donations by 2011; support from the district administration is unlikely due to the high position. A competition between seven German universities is planned for the specific implementation, not least to save money on planning. This renovation was then completed by 2015.
Worth seeing
Cinema Venus
First and foremost, the depot of the Berlin – Hohenschönhausen electric train was located in the Degnerstraße loop . The building was used in its original function until 1929, after which the entrepreneur Carl Bresin leased it and manufactured food here until the Second World War . After the war, the hall was in ruins as a result of bomb hits . Anna and Georg Reichardt bought the property and opened a cinema with 586 seats in it. It was named Kino Uhu because such a night bird nested in the walls during the reconstruction work . Between 1959 and 1990 the cinema was owned by the state and was rebuilt several times. In 1966 it was renamed Kino Venus .
In the 1970s and 1980s, this cinema was also the second venue for the well-attended Berlin cabaret Die Distel .
After the fall of the Wall , the film theater was re-privatized, but had to close in 2004 due to competition from the Cinemaxx multiplex cinema at the Hohenschönhausen S-Bahn station, which opened in 1998 . The building has been empty since then. The attempt to change the use in 2007 failed (as of 2016).
There is a plaque on the building to commemorate the first tram to Hohenschönhausen.
Old fire station
The Hotel Alte Feuerwache is located right next to the former Venus cinema in the former service building of the Hohenschönhausen volunteer fire department . This moved into the fire station built especially for this purpose in 1912, after it had previously been housed in the courtyard of the Hohenschönhausen Palace.
In addition to the garage shed for the fire engines and the office, there were also eleven apartments for the fire fighters and community workers. The building was used in its original function as a fire station until 1988 , after which the office moved to a newer building on Ferdinand-Schultze-Straße. The building stood empty for the following years.
In 2004 the association “Alte Feuerwache e. V., House of Open Child and Youth Work “the house. In addition to youth work, this envisaged the establishment of a youth hotel until 1998, the income from which was to be used to repay the loans. At first it was planned to feed a foundation with the funds generated. The renovation began in August 1997 and lasted until May 2000. Due to construction delays, however, the management could not begin in time. A family business from the hotel industry was won over as operator. The current appearance of the house goes back to the original views and the concept of the girder. Only a clock tower was not redesigned for cost reasons. The building was supervised by the house's sponsoring association, which continues to manage the house and is the largest user in the property with more than 50 percent of the area. Around 5.5 million D-Marks were used for the two and a half year renovation. In addition to funds from the Deutsche Klassenlotterie, the largest donor, private funds from a housing association, a private person, residual funds from the Hohenschönhausen youth welfare office from 1999 and loans from the sponsor's house bank also flowed into the renovation.
Lemke House
House Lemke is located at number 60 on Oberseestrasse, which touches the lake of the same name to the north . It is the last residential building designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Germany and also an internationally significant attraction in the district. Art exhibitions are regularly held in the museum under the responsibility of the Lichtenberg district.
literature
- Axel Besteher-Hegenbart, Klaus Esche (Ed.): All of Berlin-East . Stattbuch-Verlag, Berlin 1991.
- The architectural and art monuments in the GDR, capital Berlin II . Ed. Institute for Monument Preservation at Henschelverlag, Berlin 1984, pp. 155–159 (Hohenschönhausen)
- Hans-Michael Schulze : In the villas of the agents - the Stasi celebrities in private . Berlin 2003.
Web links
- Article about the former Venus cinema in the cinema compendium
Individual evidence
- ↑ Axel Besteher-Hegenbart, Klaus Esche (ed.): All of Berlin-East . Stattbuch-Verlag, Berlin 1991, p. 202
- ↑ Plans for the lakes district . In: Berliner Zeitung , March 8, 2007
- ↑ Karolina Wrobel: Seeterrassen on Orankesee are to open with the IGA Berlin. Old Hohenschönhausen. A new inn on Orankesee is soon to become a magnet for residents and tourists, just in time for the International Garden Exhibition (IGA) Berlin in 2017. January 11, 2016, accessed on April 30, 2018 : “After the renovation of the lakes last year was ended by the district, the construction of a new tavern by a private investor will soon begin "
Coordinates: 52 ° 33 ' N , 13 ° 29' E