Modern Architecture in Berlin

Potsdamer Platz (p. 113-116)
High-rise office building 1994–99
Tiergarten, Potsdamer Platz 1

Architects: Hans Kollhoff, Helga Timmermann, with Jasper Jochimsen

Client: Daimler Chrysler Immobilien

Erected at the tip of the new and old Potsdamer Straße, this 24-storey tower with red brick facing and crowned by golden crenelation has meanwhile become the focal point and emblem of Potsdamer Platz. The gastronomical services behind its grayish-green granite foundation, its representative entrée: Europe’s fastest elevator, and incomparable view from the top of the tower contribute to making the office high-rise with rental spaces of different sizes so popular and accessible. 24-storey floor area: 29,000 sqm, building costs: circa 105 million Euro.

Sony Center 1995–2000
Mitte, Potsdamer Platz at the corner of Bellevuestraße

Architects: Murphy/Jahn Architects

Client: Sony Deutschland

Focal point of the individual building parts is the inviting, roofed-over performance level – a private as well as public space with an atmosphere suited to relaxing here for a while. Apart from Sony’s European center, located here as well are luxurious penthouse apartments, the multi-complex movie theater Deutsche Mediathek, and, threatened to be torn down, the socalled “Kaisersaal” (imperial hall) of the former Hotel Esplanade, literally rolled into place and installed under massive holding girders for festive events and receptions.

Ritz-Carlton Berlin 2002–04
Mitte, Bellevuestraße at the corner of Auguste- Hausdener Straße

Architects: Heinz Hilmer, Christoph Sattler, Thomas Albrecht

Client: Otto Beisheim

This building is the winner of an urban planning competition whose guidelines took into account the entire area of Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz, along with the area that Otto Beisheim, as project initiator, could acquire and name. The architects’ contributions stand out on the strength of their distinctive formal vocabulary, and they satisfy all the demands of a 5-star hotel with suites in seven floors of a 19-storey tower.

Marriott Hotel Berlin 2001–03

Mitte, Inge-Beisheim-Platz 1

Architect: Bernd Albers

Client: Immago

A year 2000 competition winner: 379 rooms on nine floors, above a 2-storey foundation. “With a finely subdivided and vertically aligned, façade structure made of expressive stone profiles as thick as 20 cm of Portuguese sandstone, the attempt was made here to have a large building appear elegant and light. The ’folded’ design of the stone façade deliberately recalls a curtain. The play on this motif corresponds with the inner logic of a hotel in a metropolis: the façade stages the balancing of the public area’s representative character with a hotel room’s privacy.”

Parkside apartments 2001–05
Tiergarten, Lennéstraße, Parkstraße

Architects: David Chipperfield Architects

Project management: Intertec

Client: IMMAGO

Located at the district’s northern border, in the socalled Lenné-Dreieck, are six small residential blocks, whose 10-storey constructions largely accommodate apartments intended for highly discriminating tenants, offering a view of the Tiergarten city park.