The Red Rathaus is the Berlin town hall, the seat of the Governing Mayor, the Senate Chancellery and conference location of the Senate of Berlin. It is located in Rathausstraße 15 in the Mitte district. It was built from 1861 to 1871 according to plans Hermann Friedrich Waesemann in the arched style as the seat of the mayor, the city council and the magistrate of Berlin. His name goes back to the red brick facade.
The Red Rathaus is surrounded by Rathausstraße (Northwest),
Jüdenstraße (Northeast), Gustav-Böß-Straße (Südost) and Spandauer Straße
(Südwest). The generous clearing of Alt-Berlin during the GDR period
around 1950 led to large open spaces around the Red Rathaus. From the
late 1960s, the areas filled the park on the television tower, the town
hall passages and in the 1980s the Marx-Engels Forum and the
Nikolaiviertel. The Marx-Engels Forum and the Park on the television
tower have been described by the urban development administration of
Berlin since the beginning of the 21st century as a town hall forum, but
the facility does not bear an official name. The majority of the area in
this form has theoretical existing protection by 2030. The intersection
of the main axes of the television tower and the town hall has been
marked by the Neptune fountain originally standing in front of the city
palace since 1969.
Immediately in front of the Red City Hall, the
Rotes Rathaus underground station has been built under Rathausstraße
since 2013 as part of the extension of the subway line 5 from
Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate. It was opened on December 4,
2020. The construction work was preceded by archaeological excavations,
the unexpectedly well -preserved remains of the medieval Berlin town
hall, the town hall tower and the court arbor. Large parts of it are to
be presented in the form of an archaeological window.
Before the current council building was built, Karl Friedrich
Schinkel had presented a series of conversion plans of the Old Town Hall
around 1817. They probably did not meet the ideas of the urban building
deputation, because in 1857/1858 it wrote a competition (a competition)
for a complete new town hall building, "one monument worthy of the
importance of the city" should arise. Well -known architects had
submitted designs, including Friedrich von Schmidt (who had planned the
Vienna town hall), Eduard Knoblauch and Ernst Klingenberg as well as
Friedrich Adler, Hermann Nicolai and Robert Cremer. The builders
mentioned received prices for their designs, but was not built
afterwards. The Prussian royal building councilor Hermann Friedrich
Waesemann received the order for construction according to his own
designs in 1859. In accordance with the council ideas, he worked in some
ideas from the competition.
The construction was carried out in
two stages from 1860 to 1865 and from 1865 to 1871, initially the
building craftsmen built the base made of Silesian granite, which was
blinded with red clinkers, for the two parts of the building along the
Jewish and Königstrasse. After the old town hall had been carefully
removed, the other parts of the building followed. Source of inspiration
for the architectural design of the facade could have been the medieval
town hall of the city of Thorn in West Prussia with its glare arches and
the massive tower in brick construction. Other sources give influences
from the Renaissance of Northern Italy for the facades. The architecture
of the tower was based on the towers of the Laon cathedral in France.
The first council meeting in the new building took place on June 30,
1865 and on January 6, 1870 the city council also met here for the first
time. At that time, however, the artistic equipment of the rooms and
corridors was not yet completed. With the inauguration of the festivals
at the reception for the MPs of the first German Reichstag on the
occasion of the adoption of the Reich constitution, the town hall was
considered to be completed on April 17, 1871.
The construction
replaced a building partly from the Middle Ages and took up an almost
square street block educated by acquired. The medieval court arbor, part
of the old town hall, was not demolished until 1871. Heinrich Strack
used original parts of it for an identical copy built in the Babelsberg
park. The final construction costs for the new council building were
more than ten million marks, and only three million were planned as a
requirement. In 1882 a telephone system was installed in the building.
Between 1902 and 1911, the town hall on the city center on the whey
market, which had become small for the mystery of administrative tasks,
was also known as a new town hall.
In 1921, the education of
Groß-Berlin resulted in a careful renovation of the city council for 225
city councilors by Ludwig Hoffmann. According to Hoffmann, Waesemann had
created one of the "most beautiful and proudest buildings in Berlin, a
work from a cast" with the town hall. During the National Socialism
period, there were no more city councilors in the Red town hall, the
last meeting took place on March 12, 1933. In their hall, 45 councilors
now gathered, who were only allowed to perform consulting functions.
From 1934 a state commissioner was deputy to the mayor. Both offices
passed to the city president in 1936. From 1934 to 1938 the building was
again converted. The city fathers announced that it was "adapted to the
spirit of the Third Reich". The architect was Richard Ermisch. By
removing massive breasts and a new coloring, the staircase received a
light design, for the porch at the end of the stairwell, Max Esser
created a fountain and in front of the town hall came in front of the
town hall on the occasion of the Olympics of Hanna Cauer.
The
first loss of war in World War II was the delivery of the bronze
fountain for the "metal donation of the German people" in 1940. In
November 1943, an air raid destroyed the ballroom. This was followed by
damage caused by further air raids in autumn 1944 and on February 3,
1945. On April 22, Soviet artillery fire hit the house, which had
previously been damaged to a third. The tower and wing on the street
behind the town hall had suffered substance damage. The library hall
burned down on May 12, 1945. At the end of May, employees with repairs
of the house now destroyed began. The Ratsherrensaal and the ballroom
had suffered particularly severe damage. The Berlin magistrate, the city
council and the mayor were therefore based in the new town house on
Parochialstrasse. In 1947 he prompted King Friedrich I. and Kaiser
Wilhelm I at the main entrance in 1947.
From 1951 to 1956, the
Red Rathaus was restored to the East Berlin magistrate according to
plans by the architect Fritz Meinhardt. The exterior was largely
faithful to the original. Roof areas, destroyed facade parts as well as
parts of the tower and the "stone chronicle" were replaced. Inside the
town hall, Meinhardt only left the main staircase, which was largely
unmistaked. Especially on the first floor, administrative and
representation rooms were completely redesigned. The construction work
was under the responsibility of the design office for building
construction I. 500,000 hard -burned bricks were used in 920 different
formats, manufactured in the VEB Ziegelwerk Großräschen for the heavily
structured fronts. The sculptor Richard Schnauder made the models to
renew the balcony parapets. The building was officially inaugurated on
November 30, 1955. When handing over the keys to Mayor Friedrich Ebert,
the commissioned construction worker Max Body announced: "From here, all
of Berlin will once be managed".
The first meeting of the city
council at its new seat took place on November 30, 1956 in the re
-established Red town hall. As a result of the German division and the
associated division of the city, the magistrate's town hall, the city
council and the mayor of East Berlin were housed. The West Berlin Senate
was based in the Schöneberg town hall until 1991. On October 1, 1991, as
predicted by Max Body, the administration of the reunited Berlin
returned to the Red Rathaus. Since then it has served as the seat of the
Berlin Senate and the Governing Mayor. The Berlin House of
Representatives meets in the building of the former Prussian House of
Representatives.
From 2005 to 2006 the building fabric was
renewed at the tower. Within the one -year renovation, the dials of the
tower clock also received a new gold pad.
Since June 2010, a
photovoltaic system installed by the Berlin Energy Agency with 160 solar
modules on the flat roof of the building has produced around 36,000
kilowatt hours of electricity a year.
General and facades
The construction consists of four wings above
a square floor plan with the side lengths 99 m × 99 m. They enclose
three open courtyards. One of the farms received a glass roof in the
2000s and often serves for larger receptions. The facades on the four
street fronts are divided with narrow side risalites and a wide middle
risalite. The risalites with polygonal corner towers are completed on
the corners of Jüdenstrasse and Spandauer Straße. The entire building is
crowned with an all -round main cornice with attic. The building height
is 27 meters up to this point. The fronts to Rathausstraße and
Gustav-Böß-Straße have round arched windows that include the first and
second floor. A large portal niche forms the main entrance into the
council building. There were originally bronze sculptures in the niches
on the side of the main portal. The left plastic of the sculptor Erdmann
Encke represented King Friedrich I, the right king Wilhelm I from the
workshop of Karl Keil. The niches have been empty since 1947.
Some parts of the facade are decorated with allegorical figures,
ornaments and also a Berlin coat of arms modeled by Ferdinand August
Fischer.
Terracotta jar
The construction plastic jewelry at
the surrounding balcony at the level of the first floor is unusual. The
terracotta jar (also known as the stone chronicle) from 36 4 meters of ×
6 meters in size with events in the history of Berlin and Brandenburg
from the 12th century to the founding of the Reich in 1871 by Ludwig
Brodwolf, Alexander Calandrelli, Otto Geyer and designed Rudolf
Schweinitz.
Tower
The height of the tower chosen by the
architect (up to the parapet 74 meters and to the top 94 m) is evaluated
by historians as "sign of the bourgeois city of Berlin in the 19th
century", because it was higher than the dome of the Berlin city palace
.
The town hall tower determines the city silhouette with its
canopy appearance and the loosened corners. It has a floor plan of
around 12 meters × 13 meters, 375 steps lead to the plateau. The tower
is emphasized horizontally by sandstone columns and pilasters. On every
tower side there are her hobs made of colored glazed clay in small keys,
a total of eight bears that were created according to designs by
Friedrich Wilhelm Wolff.
Johann Mannhardt from Mannheim delivered
the large round tower clock. The original tower clock renewed after the
war has four 4.75 meters in diameter-measuring dials with a superior
forge and a two-meter-long minute pointer and a 1.30 meter long hour.
For this purpose, a tower ring was installed that sounds with the hit
tone C for a quarter of an hour, the hour strike is tailored to the tone
D. Allegorical figures were set up in the four corner niches of the
tower in 1894. They show fishing (sculptor Adolf Brütt), shipping
(sculptor Ernst Herter), the trade (sculptor Peter Breuer) and
agriculture (sculptor Otto Geyer).
The tower is not used, so that
hiking falcons could settle here. Otherwise it would be conceivable to
release it as a lookout tower.
Stairs, representation rooms and more
On the ground floor and
on the first floor there are the entrance hall with a staircase, the
porch, the convertible hall, cloakroom, the city council meeting
hall (today the coat of arms hall, which shows the coat of arms of
all 20 Berlin districts in the 1950s), the dining room, the column
hall with the Gallery, the porch in front of the mayor's rooms.
There is a glass showcase in the foyer, in which the current
golden book is presented. Since the introduction of the honorary
guest book in 1918, numerous prominent visitors have registered,
including many politicians, scientists, artists or athletes.
Currently (as of 2018) the ninth book is already being used, the
previous ones are stored either in archives or directly in the town
hall. A calligraph prepares the corresponding text before the
guests' signatures. Other showcases contain selected honor gifts of
high state guests.
The stairs were made of black syenite.
Some of the inner columns of the building consist of cast iron, many
pillars and pillars made of sandstone, often clad with stucco marble
(Stucco Lustro). The new radiators received artistic wrought -iron
grids from Fritz Kühn's workshop, which also reorganized the window
grids on Rathausstraße.
Numerous well -known artists were
advised or practically involved in the design of the representation
rooms, including Hugo Vogel and Georg Bleibtreu. The last brush
strokes were only carried out in the 1890s. They had painted
historical scenes on the walls that have not been available since
the reconstruction in the 1950s. The murals in the magistrate
session hall showed survival -sized Prussian regents in the
corresponding robe and equipped with the imperial insignia. After
the city of Berlin had to cancel the reception that was also
intended as the opening of the ballroom at the end of the Berlin
congress due to an assassination attempt on Kaiser Wilhelm I, Mayor
Hermann Duncker commissioned the historian painter Anton von Werner
at their last meeting in the Palais Schulenburg to paint. The large
oil painting adorned the ballroom in a specially made show frame
until there was a hall without public traffic during the Nazi era.
After 1945 initially Soviet prey art, it was stored to the GDR after
return. Until 1990, the ballroom served as the conference room of
the East Berlin city council, with the name of large hall. In the
course of the redesign, the painting is shown again in the old
square. Today's column hall originally housed the council library.
Work rooms
Until the 20th century, the town hall also
contained the official apartment of the mayor, for whose completion
it was necessary to finance.
There are 38 offices on the
second and third floor. On the second floor there is a meeting room
and on the third floor there are two session rooms, the MPs'
cabinet, a dining room and again a number of office space. The
dining room offers 170 seats and has been operated by the non
-profit Union of social institutions (Use) since 2004.
The
town hall has a total of 252 offices and 15 session and event halls.
basement, cellar
In all the town halls built earlier, there
was a gastronomy in the basement, mostly referred to as council
cellar. The council drinking room or the Bernauer Keller were often
meeting points for councilors in a party mood. The name after the
city of Bernau was created because of the Bernau beer served here.
The new Ratskeller extended in parallel to Königstrasse in the
entire building. He opened his rooms and adjoining rooms on October
5, 1869. The artists involved in the design also met here. The
restoration, a wine and beer restaurant, was also open to all
Berliners and was well attended. After the damage in the Second
World War, the Ratskeller was restored and reopened in 1964 with
five guest rooms. His centerpiece, the octagonal beer room, was
directly below the town hall tower with the massive pillar in the
middle, which carries the town hall tower. The foundation for the
building was laid here in 1861. The Ratskeller was closed in 1991.
He is now a canteen that is also regularly open to the public. It is
also provided by the use and offers down -to -earth German cuisine.
Common users are seniors from neighboring facilities and houses as
well as tourists.
In the basement there is also a 500 square
meter camp, which contains original building blocks, jewelry stones
such as ornaments, rosettes and plates with the Berlin bear and the
Brandenburg eagle as well as cast templates. These valuable
components (valued value two million euros) serve to be able to
quickly restore parts of the building after destruction by storms or
simply by falling out due to the weather.
Works of art and
structural changes from the 20th century
In the reconstruction,
the planners removed or waived the still images, busts and giant
paintings of the Hohenzollern, they were "dusty remnants of past
eras". Other sculptures received new locations, according to the
presentation of the Spree (Sprea) of the sculptor Jeremias
Christensen, which has been in the Berlin Zoo since 1955.
At
the same time, an intermediate ceiling was drawn in over the former
magistrate session hall and the large porch. This created new office
rooms and the mayor's representative rooms with the window front to
Rathausstraße. The magistrate session hall was moved to the first
floor above the entrance in Jüdenstrasse. The previous room has not
been well received by the magistrate members before. In a
description of the Stadtsyndikus Friedrich Lange, it was said in
1920: “An unfriendly, dark, musty room with pre -flood heating
pillars, without any ventilation, the load -bearing impression of
which is still reinforced by the size of the survival of former
Hohenzollern and Mayor on the walls. Traditional care does not need
to be linked to false economy and tasteless unculture. But the whole
thing fits the barracks -like stairs and hallways of the house. "