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| Photos by DC unless noted |
This past May, we went with our friends Emily Pütter and Michael Neil to the industrial
district of Schöneweide, along the Spree, in the far east of Berlin. Emily and
Michael had studios here and lived here for several years, until they were forced
out by gentrification (among the players now is Eric Olafsson).
This was the heart of the AEG industrial empire, much
of which I had thought was designed by Peter Behrens. But I searched in vain
for his famous Turbine Hall (1909) – it turns out to be located in the neighborhood
of Moabit, in the west (Huttenstraße 12-16, for next
time).
I
didn't see anything as architecturally smashing as the Turbine Hall, but the overall
impact of the two-kilometer stretch of massive factory complexes along
the river is very powerful: block after block of multi-story, substantially-built yellow-brick buildings, with high
floors, tall windows and multiple courtyards, many with a myriad of small
businesses, studios, artists lofts and so on inside.
One block, now
called the "Rathenau Halle", features a large vaulted space with a double-angled
gable like the Turbine Hall. It is the Neue Montagehalle, built a few years later
(1915–16) by the industrial designer Paul Tropp.
One of the buildings
is still functioning as a cable factory, and several others belong to the
University
of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economics.
It turns
out that Behrens' only major building there, and not one of his best I would
say, is the factory and administrative offices for the AEG automobile plant,
the Nationale Automobil-Gesellschaft (NAG, 1913-17).
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| Peter Behrensm NAG Administrative offices. From Wikipedia |
A
Wikipedia page listing the architecture of the area brings up another surprise:
this "Bootshaus Elektra" or "Electric Boathouse" (1910-12) by
Behrens "with Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris", aka Le Corbusier . It
can be found a bit downriver at An der Wuhlheide 236/23.
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| Behrens with Le Corbusier, Boathouse, from Wikipedia |
For
the full Wikipedia listing of architecture in the area:
Highlights:
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| AEG Small
Motors Factory, Berlin-Wedding (1910-13); photo: Emil Leitner, ca. 1925 |
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| AEG
Workers’ Housing, Hennigsdorf (1918-19) |
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| AEG
Locomotive Factory, Hennigsdorf (1913) |
Here is the edited Google translation of a webpage
about the Schöneweide district:
"The
industrial estate in Oberschöneweide is one of the most important monuments of
Berlin industry and is regarded as the largest connected industrial monument in
Europe. The rise began around 1895, when the AEG under Emil Rathenau moved to
the still-undeveloped Spreeufer in the southeast of the city in search for a
suitable location for their constantly expanding production sites. Within a few
years Schöneweide became one of the largest sites of the Berlin electrical
industry and, at the same time, the world's largest location for AEG."
"Since
the beginning of the twentieth century, no industrial branch has shaped the
economy and everyday life as decisively as the electro-technical industry. The
unique concentration of this innovative industry helped the German capital rise
to become the "Elektropolis" of Germany, and made Berlin an
industrial city of the first rank in the following decades."
"The
"General Electricity Society" … was a modern company that shaped the
structure and the cityscape of Oberschöneweide. Schöneweide is therefore also
called "AEG-Stadt" or "AEG City". "
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Ernst Ziesel, Building
A 8 (AEG Telecommunication Cable Factory), 1927-28, demolished 2006. Wikipedia
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"In
the Wilhelminenhofstraße, AEG erected a long corridor of factory plants, which
with their yellow brick façades still characterize the almost
two-kilometer-long industrial area between the Spree and Wilhelminenhofstraße
today. AEG commissioned the most famous architects of the time, such as
Franz Schwechten and later Peter Behrens, as well as the industrial building
specialists Paul Tropp and Ernst Ziesel. This unique ensemble of factories, production
halls, administrative buildings and residential buildings embodies the
beginnings of architectural modernism."
The AEG empire was built by Emil Rathenau and his son,
Walther. The original family estate in Schöneweide
still stands; in Walther's time the family moved to the
wealthy suburb of Grunemwald in the west. For a quick portrait of Walther and the AEG, see the following, quoted below:
Nigel Jones
"The Assasination of Walther Ratenau"
History Today
"(Walther) Rathenau was one of the most formidable figures in early
20th century Germany. A Jewish industrialist, thinker and diplomat, he built
the enormous AEG electronics and engineering conglomerate into a powerhouse of
the German economy. During the First World War, when Britain’s naval blockade
was starving Germany of vital raw material imports, Rathenau became his
nation’s economic overlord."
"Playing a role similar to Albert Speer in the Second World War,
Rathenau husbanded Germany’s dwindling resources and directed its industrial
production, brilliantly improvising to give a lease of life to its failing war
effort. His work, according to some historians, prolonged German resistance by
months or even years. It also sowed the seeds of hatred in the minds of
Germany’s anti-semitic nationalists, who saw in Rathenau, not a great patriot
brilliantly managing scarcity, but a rich Jew cornering markets."
"After the war the infant Weimar Republic sought out the talented
Rathenau, making him foreign minister. ... Rathenau duly stoked
the Right’s rage in 1922 by negotiating the Treaty of Rapallo with the nascent
Soviet Union, while insisting that Germany had to fulfill the provisions of the
deeply unpopular Treaty of Versailles."
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| The crane now houses a riverside cafe |
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| Photo: Eniily Püetter and Michael Neil |
