Residential building at Checkpoint Charlie

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Residential building at Checkpoint Charlie
Friedrichstrasse residential complex in the 1989 construction phase

The residential building at Checkpoint Charlie is a mixed-use building on Friedrichstrasse 207/208 in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg . The building was erected in the course of the International Building Exhibition in 1987 and is considered to be one of the important early works by the Rotterdam architectural office OMA .

Conception and creation

The building was designed by the Greek architect Ilias Zengelis and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and realized as part of the 1987 International Building Exhibition. Construction began in 1987 and construction was completed in 1990. The building is in close proximity to Checkpoint Charlie , a former border crossing between East and West Berlin that was created when the Berlin Wall was erected. Besides the Dutch Embassy in Berlin, the house at Checkpoint Charlie is the only building that OMA has built in Berlin.

Rem Koolhaas was significantly involved in the conceptual framework of the project as part of a previous competition, but later declined further work for the IBA due to a lack of agreement with its objectives. The concrete planning of the building was finally carried out by Zengelis and Matthias Sauerbruch , who acted as contact architect.

From the beginning a mixed use was planned, which still exists today in a modified form. The upper part of the building was designed for social housing in Berlin . In the immediate vicinity of the border, the building was also supposed to take over functions for the border troops of the American armed forces and the Berlin customs . The ground floor provided turning opportunities for the border control posts, while a two-story hall with set pavilions was to be used by customs. These special functions are the reason why the ground floor has very few supports. In view of this additional structural effort, the well-known civil engineer Stefan Polónyi was called in for the planning . Due to the limited space in Friedrichstrasse , the building has no closure of the street .

With the fall of the wall , the facility for customs and border troops became superfluous. By 1994 the ground floor was converted into a storefront, in 2009 the street-side entrance was significantly reduced in size in favor of another store.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Project page of the IBA 87 research initiative

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '25.8 "  N , 13 ° 23'24.8"  E