Description

In a transformer station, the grid AC voltage is transformed down to the consumer voltage. The BEWAG transformer station at Lützowplatz in Berlin houses transformers and accompanying switching equipment, measuring instruments and meters as well as necessary safety devices. Also, the building is part of the urban concept of the Berlin IBA building exhibition scheme of 1984 which proposed a private passageway at this position in the urban block to access the buildings in the courtyard.

The transformer station is composed of two building parts: a gatehouse, which is one storey higher than the adjacent buildings, and a second slab-like building wing. The gatehouse contains the passageway to the courtyard; the wing in the court refers to the existing fabric and responds to the long compartment wall and the eaves level of the adjacent building. Because of the organization of the required spaces within two building parts and the use of different façade materials the transformer station could be matched with the adjacent buildings. At the same time, the significance of the passageway in terms of urban design could be highlighted.

The building skin of the gatehouse is a ventilated lightweight metal curtain wall, consisting of steel U-profiles forming visible compartments. The bolts for securing the bluish coloured façade elements are exposed in order to express the method of construction. By contrast, the façades of the wing in the court consist of facing brick.

Due to technical requirements the geometry of the transformer station is characterized by oversized ceiling heights of the six storeys. As an integral part of the block, it is a “technical building” of the 20th century, which displays its functional content. Simultaneously it serves as entrance building to the residential buildings in the courtyard.

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Originally published in: Jürgen Adam, Katharina Hausmann, Frank Jüttner, Industrial Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2004.