Zollernhof

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Zollernhof house in January 1950
Zollernhof House , 1952
Zollernhof house , view from Unter den Linden , 2010

The Zollernhof is an office building built in 1910/1911 in Berlin-Mitte that is a listed building. From 1949 to 1990 this was the seat of the Central Council of the Free German Youth (FDJ) . Second German Television (ZDF) has had its capital city studio there since February 3, 2000 and other media companies have set up shop there.

location and size

The building complex is located in Berlin-Dorotheenstadt , between Unter den Linden 36–38 and Mittelstrasse 45–48. Originally, the building was only half the size and only took up the corner plot of the boulevard Unter den Linden and the Kleine Kirchgasse, which was later built over. Currently (as of 2010) the following areas are given: Property size 4,042 square meters; Gross usable area: 32,000 square meters spread over eleven floors, seven of which are above ground.

Construction, naming and architecture of the building

The architect Kurt Berndt created the overall design of the building, the design of the facade in neoclassical style as well as the vestibule and the main staircase were contributed by Bruno Paul . Together with the inauguration of the building on November 16, 1911, the Zollernhof restaurant , which was planned and executed separately by the architect Henry Gross, was opened with 1000 seats.

It can be assumed that the naming is a tribute to the Prussian ruling house of the Hohenzollern , whose residence in the royal city of Berlin was the Berlin Palace not far from the Zollernhof until 1918 .

The building itself is a five-storey steel frame construction with a facade clad with natural stone. The building, which was planned as an office building, offered numerous different companies accommodation in a central location. The first building had its visible side facing the street Unter den Linden, which was given an even window structure - each pair of windows is summarized in three storeys above one another by a vertical. Relief-like garlands are worked into the facade under the windows on the first floor. The attic storey bears some larger-than-life figures (such as Hermes , the messenger of the gods ), executed in the classical manner , which should symbolize a well-functioning economy. The five attic figures still preserved today were moved to the (new) center of the building in the extension of 1938.

1919 to 1945

After the First World War , the Hugenberg-Verlag acquired the Zollernhof and had it doubled in length in 1938 by the architects Richard Bielenberg & Josef Moser by building over the Kleine Kirchgasse. Six exactly copied window axes from the old building were added to the house (the transition to the extension can still be recognized today by the slightly lighter stone cladding). The Jews among the shopkeepers were expropriated during the National Socialist era . During the Second World War , the complex burned down, so that almost the entire interior of the building was destroyed.

1946 to 1990

Once in the Unter den Linden from the summer of 1945 a large area, the destroyed buildings enttrümmert had been, the buildings surviving could be reconstructed. The interior design of the Zollernhof was changed, a restaurant was no longer operated. In 1949 the Central Council of the FDJ took its headquarters in Zollernhof. Other GDR organizations were also located there, such as the head office of the Ernst Thälmann pioneer organization , the Berlin FDJ district management, the GDR tourism and hiking committee and a specialty shop for pioneer and FDJ clothing, tourism, sports and camping on the ground floor.

After 1990

In February 1990, the Zollernhof was occupied by several “new” GDR youth associations that arose immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the concession to found further youth associations in addition to the state organization FDJ . They joined together in the "Round Table of Young People" in the GDR and saw it as their right to use the space previously used by the State Youth Association FDJ for pluralistic, democratic youth work. As part of the German reunification in October 1990, several youth associations were quickly merged into West German partner associations (such as the Jusos or the Young Liberals of the GDR) or had dissolved again a few months after their foundation due to social changes, but some like z. For example, the German Esperanto Youth (with another office in Bonn), the Lambda youth network and the umbrella association Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neue Demokratische Jugendverbände continued to use the building.

In November 1993 the ZDF acquired the Zollernhof. From 1997 to 1999 the building was renovated and converted under the direction of the Berlin architect Thomas Baumann. The courtyard became part of a shopping arcade that connects the Unter den Linden boulevard with Mittelstrasse at the back. On February 3, 2000, ZDF opened its new capital city studio in this historic building. In 2012, the station employed 176 people here. The Zollernhof restaurant was also reopened at the same location. Other tenants in Zollernhof are the Austrian television company ORF and the Japanese media companies Mainichi Broadcasting System (MBS) and Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) . The Zollernhof is a listed building .

Programs from the ZDF capital studio

literature

  • H W. Hoffmann, F. Bolk: Zollernhof. ZDF Capital Studio & VEBA Unter den Linden . Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-933743-28-1
  • M. Dütmann, F. Zwoch: Bauwelt Berlin Annual 1999/2000. Chronicle of the structural events 1996–2001 . Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-7643-6278-2
  • O. Boyn: The political Berlin. The historical travel guide . Berlin 2008, ISBN 3-86153-475-4
  • The architectural and artistic monuments in the GDR, Berlin, I . Institute for Monument Preservation at Henschelverlag (ed.). Berlin 1984, page 183.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Zollernhof monument, Unter den Linden 36/38
  2. ↑ History of the building on friedrichstrasse.de
  3. ↑ Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmale I, ... p. 183
  4. ^ ZDF and Veba move under the linden trees . In: Berliner Zeitung , March 20, 1996; for planning the ZDF capital studio
  5. ↑ Artificial snow fell on Unter den Linden . In: Berliner Zeitung , February 4, 2000; for the opening of the ZDF capital studio
  6. ↑ Article on the opening of the ZDF capital studio in the world , 2000
  7. ↑ Information in the ZDF yearbook , accessed on November 27, 2015

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '3 "  N , 13 ° 23' 12.9"  E