Europahaus
Encyclopedia
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, located in the Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg, a part of the combined Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte since 2001, is one of the best-known areas of Berlin...
district on Stresemannstraße, facing the remains of the former Anhalter Bahnhof across Askanischer Platz.
In 1924 a design competition was held for what was hailed as the largest new business premises in Berlin, occupying a key site in what was then still called Königgrätzer Straße
Battle of Königgrätz
The Battle of Königgrätz , also known as the Battle of Sadowa, Sadová, or Hradec Králové, was the decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War, in which the Kingdom of Prussia defeated the Austrian Empire...
(it was not renamed Stresemannstraße
Gustav Stresemann
was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor and Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.Stresemann's politics defy easy categorization...
until 1930). The design included a general reorganisation of the gardens of the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais
Prinz-Albrecht-Palais
The Prinz-Albrecht-Palais was a large stately mansion or a smaller palace in Berlin Friedrichstadt. It was located on Wilhelmstraße 102, opposite the western end of Kochstraße.-History:...
to the rear and also the Askanischer Platz area.
The competition was won by Richard Bielenberg (1871-1929) and Josef Moser (1872-1963), who had earlier been responsible for the Hotel Fürstenhof at nearby Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz is an important public square and traffic intersection in the centre of Berlin, Germany, lying about one kilometre south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag , and close to the southeast corner of the Tiergarten park...
, but with a structure very different in style to that edifice. Europahaus was an ultra-modern building, somewhat daring for its time. It possessed a 280-metre-long facade along Stresemannstraße, yet it was actually planned not as one monolithic building, but a group of individual but linked structures, of which the name Europahaus really applied only to the tall central section. The first section to be completed, in 1926, was the lower southernmost part. This had its own name – Deutschlandhaus (House of Germany), and contained a shopping arcade and a theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
, the latter also doubling up as a cinema
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
where some of Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
's films were premiered.
Lufthansa
Deutsche Lufthansa AG is the flag carrier of Germany and the largest airline in Europe in terms of overall passengers carried. The name of the company is derived from Luft , and Hansa .The airline is the world's fourth-largest airline in terms of overall passengers carried, operating...
" logo
Logo
A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...
. After much argument, Europahaus was finally completed in 1931. Its 12 storeys made it much higher than any of the nearby buildings. A steel-framed construction, it was one of the first high-rise office blocks to be completed in Berlin. A lower northern section contained a large ballroom
Ballroom
A ballroom is a large room inside a building, the designated purpose of which is holding formal dances called balls. Traditionally, most balls were held in private residences; many mansions contain one or more ballrooms...
- the Europa Tanz Pavilion (Europa Dance Pavilion).
Also containing restaurants, bars and a palm garden (added in 1935), the completed building underwent a number of alterations and extensions in rapid succession, and the theatre had three different names in just a few years: opened as the Phoebus Palast in 1926, it became the Emelka Palast in 1932 and Europa Palast in 1935.
The exterior was adorned by a large number of illuminated advertising signs, of which two in particular made it a major landmark on the Berlin skyline, day and night: one advertising Allianz Versicherung (Alliance Insurance), and the other advertising Odol toothpaste
Toothpaste
Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush as an accessory to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it serves as an abrasive that aids in removing the dental plaque and food from the teeth, assists in suppressing...
. The latter was mounted on a tower, erected in 1935, which brought the total height of the building to 50 metres.
After 1933 the central office block was taken over by the Third Reich, who occupied it with numerous Nazi-affiliated organisations, particularly the Reich Ministry of Labour. The building sustained much damage during the Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
bombing raids
Strategic bombing during World War II
Strategic bombing during World War II is a term which refers to all aerial bombardment of a strategic nature between 1939 and 1945 involving any nations engaged in World War II...
of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, but was not a complete write-off. Although the northernmost section containing the ballroom was subsequently demolished, the remainder was renovated, and spent the next few decades occupied by various offices.
Finally, between Summer 1998 and Summer 2000 the building underwent a thorough restoration by architect Wolfgang Schafer
Wolfgang Schäfer
Wolfgang Schäfer is a German choral conductor and academic. He founded the Freiburger Vokalensemble, the BosArt Trio, and the Frankfurter Kammerchor.-Professional career:...
, and is now home to several German Government Ministries and other office concerns. The top four floors house the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is a ministry in Germany. Its main office is at the former German Chancellery in Bonn with a second major office at the Europahaus in Berlin....
, while elsewhere can be found Water and Navigation Management, the Federal Centre for Political Education, a department of the Robert Koch Institute
Robert Koch Institute
The Robert Koch Institute is the German federal institution responsible for disease control and prevention. It is located in Berlin and Wernigerode and is part of the Federal Ministry of Health.-History:...
, the Institute for Town Construction of the German Academy for Town Construction and Regional Planning, and the Alliance for Democracy and Tolerance. The office that received donations towards the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe , also known as the Holocaust Memorial , is a memorial in Berlin to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, designed by architect Peter Eisenman and engineer Buro Happold. It consists of a site covered with 2,711 concrete slabs or "stelae", arranged in a...
was also housed here.