Description

Through the provision of project spaces on the ground floor, Benita Braun-Feldweg and Matthias Muffert, acting as architects, developers and clients, aim to contribute to urban society. In their concept proposal for the site on Berlin’s former flower market, which they bid for in 2011, they recognised the potential of this “non-place” sandwiched between rugged 1970s high-rises and the ‘dressed-up’ perimeter blocks of the International Building Exhibition 84/87. Only the Baroque Kollegienhaus of the Jewish Museum with its extension by Daniel Libeskind, along with further facilities in the former market hall, gave the site any quality. The architects’ proposal envisaged making the ground floor available for community uses, subsidised by the other residential and commercial users.

Drawing on their previous experience of bringing in external uses on the ground floor in their refurbishment of the Gartenstadt Atlantic in Berlin-Wedding, they worked together with a foundation and sponsors to install local cultural and socio-medical facilities alongside the shops on the ground floor, at first temporarily, later as long-term users. Forty percent of the ground floor of the Metropolenhaus is reserved for community projects. In accordance with the building plan, bfstudio developed Markgrafenstraße as a row of buildings, behind which narrow strip plots extend deep into the block. The street elevations present a closed block perimeter fronted by balconies with a projecting segment that serves as a kind of “bay window”. The straight section overlooking the Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz is in this respect a side wing which, as Braun-Feldweg puts it, “allows a view into the anatomy of the building” from the public space. The contrast between the two facades prevents the square opposite the Kollegienhaus from being mistaken for deriving from the 19th century.

The owners of the 37 residential, 4 residential-and-working and 10 commercial units were carefully selected by the architects, who also acted as project developers and clients. Some of the usage restrictions apply for the next 15 years – conditions which, according to the agreement with the owners, can only be overturned by a two-thirds majority: the intention is that the dialogue that the Metropolenhaus enters into with its surroundings should continue within the project among the residents and users. The building on the site of former flower market represents an innovative impulse that showcases the social responsibility of property ownership.

Originally published in Bauwelt 25.2018, pp. 40-43, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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