Description

The Reichspost, Germany’s national postal service, which prospered in the first half of the 20th century, was a firm proponent of brick buildings. The chronology of the buildings on its site in Berlin-Schöneberg, which extends the depth of an entire urban block, uses industrially produced brick throughout: in 1903 the main post office building on Hauptstraße, which is still in use, was erected in brick with decorative elements of sandstone. The telegraphic office to the rear, as well as the boiler house and machine room for the pneumatic postal system, all from 1919 were all also made of brick, though here the Post Office architect Otto Spalding and Post Inspector Louis Ratzeburg had the ornamentation carved in brick. During the Weimar Republic, postmaster Fritz Nissle designed the local exchange (OVSt) and the workshops in the courtyard as unadorned and emphatically functional buildings, and only the aspects related to motorisation of the post office were given any aesthetic treatment, such as the curving form of the entrance on Belziger Straße or the petrol station in the courtyard, which remains only as a sculpture. “Here, every stone and every brick is listed,” remarks Lars Krückeberg, one of the founding partners of GRAFT architects. By the time the architects were brought in by Trockland Management für Immobilen, 90% of the buildings were unused.

Two new buildings have been inserted into the ensemble: an apartment building on the more prominent Hauptstraße and a second building on Belziger Straße on the reverse side of the urban block. The front building with a total of 107 units, extends back into the courtyard in an L-shape, closing the street frontage and linking up with the former OVSt building. The undulating street façade picks up the eaves line of the neighbouring existing buildings, swinging back in the middle above the entrance to link up with the two staggered storeys at the top in a contemporary reinterpretation of the neighbouring decorative gables. Above the two floors of business premises are one-room flats whose main feature is a square “oriel” with a single large pane of fixed glazing that appears to protrude more or less forward of the undulating surface of the brickwork façade. This stimulating frisson on the outside is not quite so alluring on the inside where the oriel is perceived merely as a slightly raised platform. To the rear, the flats overlooking the courtyard have rectangular, opaque-fronted balconies that are designed to provide privacy for the residents. The quieter aspect flats have several rooms, some of which are maisonette apartments. On the roof of the side wing is a large communal terrace where residents can enjoy the peace and space of the courtyard.

The new building on Belziger Straße stands on slender round supports and fluidly bridges the gap between the existing buildings, the opening rising to two storeys over the main passageway revealing a glimpse of the former OVSt behind. The dominant feature of the façade is its horizontal undulating balconies. On the reverse side facing the courtyard, similarly horizontal loggias are incised into a plane that dutifully straightens a skew fire wall but otherwise the façade is mostly two-dimensional. The very wide window frames, a product of cost constraints, recall the “projects” or “developments” of social housing blocks in Manhattan. The 21 flats themselves are generously proportioned, and even the stairwell is large enough to observe pandemic interpersonal space; only its lascivious pink colour is somewhat disconcerting.

The project’s approach of urban repair has successfully managed to incorporate the previously separate building of the OVSt as if it naturally been that way. This now houses the “International School of Management”, whose students bring life to the building. Ascribing to the modernist principle, their break space is also located on the roof next to the tenants’ terrace. Had the conservation authorities agreed, GRAFT would also have placed a day-care centre there. There was, however, more potential in the top floor of the transverse building with pitched roof behind it. Its large windows already hint at the large space behind, which is in parts almost eight metres high. Here the “exchange operators” once sat in front of vast switchboards, putting people through manually. Now it houses the Berlin branch of the “Kabbalah Centre” where the mystical traditions of Judaism can be practised in a non-religious environment. Beneath the renovated old, coffered ceiling and behind the original windows, the architects have inserted a podium that assists in teaching: an expression of the gradual perception of “spatial development as a path”. Beneath it are study spaces and to the rear a full-height mirrored wall heightens the impression of the full extent of the space. The floors below are now the headquarters of the client, Trockland Management.

Originally published in Bauwelt 17.2020, pp. 20-25, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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