Weinhaus Huth
The Weinhaus Huth (also called Haus Huth ) in Berlin is located in the Tiergarten district at Alte Potsdamer Straße 5. It was completed in 1912 and housed a wine shop with an attached wine restaurant. After the construction of the Berlin Wall , the building next to the abandoned site of the former Potsdamer Bahnhof and not far from the remains of the Esplanade Hotel was - not entirely accurate - referred to as "the last house on Potsdamer Platz ". The Weinhaus Huth, which stood alone in open space in West Berlin in the immediate vicinity of the Wall, was a symbol of the destruction and division of the city in the post-war period .
Front: Alte Potsdamer Strasse 5
The house numbers on Potsdamer Strasse were changed from horseshoe to today's orientation numbering in 1937 . The address Potsdamer Straße 139 of the Weinhaus Huth became Potsdamer Straße 5 and kept it when the route of Potsdamer Straße towards Potsdamer Brücke was rebuilt by the Kulturforum planned by Hans Scharoun at the end of the 1960s . The old part, which today leads to Marlene-Dietrich-Platz and where the Weinhaus Huth is located, was renamed Alte Potsdamer Straße when the new Potsdamer Platz was built .
Back: Fontaneplatz
The back of the listed building used to be directly on Linkstrasse (house number 45). In the course of the redevelopment of Potsdamer Platz, this was given a new route that was shifted parallel to the east , and the open space created behind the Huth wine house became Fontaneplatz .
history
Until 1945
On March 23, 1877, the wine merchant Christian Huth acquired the property and built a villa there, in which he set up the wine house named after him. The current building was erected on the same site in 1911/1912 by the Berlin architects Conrad Heidenreich and Paul Michel on behalf of his grandson Willy Huth .
Because of the expected load from the bottle storage, the architects envisaged a steel frame construction, one of the earliest in Berlin. Thanks to this solid construction, neither air raids nor artillery fire could seriously damage the substance of the house during World War II . The steel skeleton is faced with shell limestone facades.
After the inauguration on October 2, 1912, the wine shop was on the ground floor of the building and an associated wine restaurant and event venue on the first floor. This division can still be seen today in the window shapes: The large arched windows of the former restaurant are located above the rectangular shop windows of the wine shop. The latter established the reputation of Potsdamer Platz as an entertainment area in addition to the Vaterland house . C. Huth & Sohn and W. Huth & C. Steuer were known as owners. The top three floors with arched windows were rented.
Until 1989
After the end of the Second World War, the Weinhaus Huth was located in the British sector of Berlin on the border with the Soviet sector. In addition to the Columbus House , which was only partially restored, and the Vaterland House, located directly on Potsdamer Platz, it was one of the few largely preserved buildings in the area. A flourishing black market soon formed here and in anticipation of an upswing, the remains of the remaining buildings were makeshiftly restored. Old recordings show that the Weinhaus Huth initially offered simple dishes.
With the currency reform in the western sectors and the Berlin blockade that began a few days later on June 24, 1948 , the situation changed. On August 21, 1948, the border between the Soviet sector and the adjacent western sector was marked with a line on the asphalt.
During the popular uprising on June 17, 1953 , the Columbushaus, the Haus Vaterland and other buildings, located exactly on the border between the two halves of the city, burned down again. Only the Weinhaus Huth in the western part was spared. The houses on Potsdamer Platz that had survived the destruction of World War II became increasingly empty in the years that followed. For decades, the area was unattractive to investors.
After August 13, 1961, when Potsdamer Platz was divided by the Berlin Wall, the area around the Huth wine house was completely sidelined from urban development. The area was suddenly moved to an urban peripheral location . By the mid-1970s, almost all of the remaining buildings had been demolished.
After Willy Huth's death in 1967, his widow sold the building and the property to the Tiergarten district in West Berlin . Afterwards, several social apartments were set up in the house , which were used until 1989 and ensured the preservation of the building. Further plans to redevelop the area through new buildings were not realized until the fall of the wall . Scenes from the film Der Himmel über Berlin (1987) impressively document the urban wasteland around the house at the time.
Since 1990
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Potsdamer Platz moved back to the center of Berlin . The Daimler-Benz AG acquired the Weinhaus Huth in 1990 and moved it to the development of its building complex at this location with a. From 1990 to 1993 the Berlin office of the Bavarian State Ministry for Federal and European Affairs was on the ground floor .
The area at Potsdamer Platz turned into a major construction site for many years, only the still-inhabited Huth wine house protruded from the excavation pits. The fate of the remaining tenants also came into public discussion. After the reconstruction was completed, the traditional Berlin restaurant Lutter & Wegner opened a restaurant with a wine shop on the ground floor. From November 1998 to 2009 Josef Diekmann ran the restaurant of the same name in the building. From 2010 to March 2013, Café Möhring leased the premises.
In October 1999 the Daimler Contemporary showroom was opened on 600 m² . It houses the Daimler art collection .
literature
- Wolf Thieme: The last house on Potsdamer Platz. A Berlin chronicle. Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-89136-181-5 .
- Wolf Thieme: The Huth wine house on Potsdamer Platz. The checkered history of a Berlin legend . 2., ext. Edition. Berlin-Ed., Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8148-0099-0 .
Web links
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List with further information
- Weinhaus Huth at luise-berlin.de
- Memorial plaque at the Weinhaus Huth
- 4 sheets on the Huth von Heidenreich and Michel house, 1912, in the holdings of the Architekturmuseum der TU Berlin
- Photos around the Weinhaus Huth
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 30 ″ N , 13 ° 22 ′ 30 ″ E