Office Space Guide
1.Spree Area Mitte
»Anchoring ground - Future« - Berlin's centre of excellence for media and entertainment is taking shape under this slogan on the river Spree between Mitte, Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. City-Carrée, the German Architecture Centre (DAZ), Trias, Oberbaum-City and the Schilling bridgehead, the Postbahnhof converted into an exhibition hall and the redesign of the Ostbahnhof - the long list of completed projects is impressive evidence that the restructuring of the former derelict border area is in full swing. The music giant Universal already moved to Osthafen in 2002 and MTV followed suit in 2004. That's hardly surprising: insiders already know that this is where you'll find the trendiest dance clubs in the capital.
The conversion work is ongoing. All round the Anschütz Arena for 16,000 spectators, a quarter encompassing some 21 hectares is taking shape with restaurants, cafés, clubs, residential accommodation and offices - directly adjacent to a similar project at the Postbahnhof. Along the river Spree there is a series of projects like the Victoria storage building site, Spreeurban, Spreesinus Spreeport (with the headquarters of German trade union Ver.Di) and the Energy Forum Berlin. They are all conspicuous stand-alones which merge into a green urban landscape. This leaves space for light, air and exciting water vistas. The East Side Gallery has also been maintained but opened up over a width of 45 metres to accommodate a plaza looking onto the river Spree. Behind the Wall a waterfront park is developing contours which will be home to yet another unusual stand-alone, the Globe Theatre of the Berlin Shakespeare Company.
2.Friedrichshain
The main axis of the district has cast off the patina of the Wall years. On Karl-Marx-Allee Berlin has spruced up an urban development icon of the 20th century: Strausberger Platz, Cinema International, Café Moskau, the Kosmos Cinema and the Frankfurt Gate have all been given a facelift. More and more young people are moving here.
You can forgive the Allee for retaining its somewhat leisurely character. It is young enough for that - Europe's only elegant boulevard to emerge after the War. The team of architects around Hermann Henselmann designed buildings with a love of detail in the Moscow gingerbread style.
Today, the boulevard is livelier where it changes its name. On Frankfurter Allee with the Ring-Center and the Frankfurter Allee Plaza there are new meeting points not only for local residents.
Elsewhere, too, Friedrichshain is more up-to-date than ever before. In the old quarters along the Allee the district is taking over from Prenzlauer Berg as the most in district. This is where avant-garde trends are made, where trendsetters garner ideas for the aesthetics of the 21st century.
Simon-Dach-Straße has an abundance of cafés, bars, restaurants and clubs. And via Warschauer Straße the young Friedrichshain maintains a link to Mediaspree, where Universal Music and MTV have set up shop.
3.Northern Friedrichstraße
Between the Charité Hospital, the river Spree and Friedrichstraße the government quarter has just undone its top button. Political and business associations, newspaper offices and television stations are keen to be close to the government and the nearby Federal Press Office in Friedrich-Wilhelm-Stadt. For instance, Marienstraße: the grey building gully has blossomed. The alternative scene in the back courtyards has been joined by galleries, architects and the dpa company in the front. There is a similar picture on Reinhardtstraße, where the FDP party headquarters are located.
The Spree is proving a popular location for neigh-bours to get together for a chat. This is the site of the »Permanent Representative Office« of the prominent Bonn landlord, Friedel Drautzburg, in the heart of an entire pearl necklace of restaurants.
Between them established and young culture come together. Deutsches Theater meets the Palace of Tears, the Berliner Ensemble the Quatsch Comedy Club. Tacheles and Kalkscheune document the transition to the fashionable district Spandauer Vorstadt. The Metropol Theater is to reopen. This also ensures the survival of the cabaret legend Distel at its old location which has just celebrated its 50th anniversary.
Refurbishment work on the station next door was completed above ground in 1999 and on its underground platform in 2002. Between the station and the linden trees, pedestrians inject life into the recently completed projects. New Trade and Commerce Center, Friedrich Carrée and the cultural department store Dussmann have extended the shopping precinct beyond the linden trees to the station.
4.Central Friedrichstraße
Boulevard of brands and prestigious showrooms: elegant cars, fashion labels and luxury brands turn Friedrichstraße around Galeries Lafayette and the FriedrichstadtPassagen into the catwalk of elegant society.
That's what is visible. Between, above and behind the shop windows a high calibre infrastructure of people used to success has established itself. It is not so often the focus of public attention but at least as important: European and group headquarters, capital representative offices, smart private clubs, cigar lounges, top hotels and gourmet temples like Borchardts, Vau or Trenta Sei put their stamp on baroque Friedrichstadt around the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt.
Media representatives, diplomats and politicians are an absolute must, too. The Federal Ministry of Justice has its headquarters on Mohrenstraße, the Ministry for Family Affairs on Taubenstraße. Belgium's embassy is located on Jägerstraße, one of the connections to Hausvogteiplatz which is undergoing a renaissance.
The boulevard Unter den Linden is also being given a facelift. The pavements on both sides of the elegant boulevard are being widened by almost three metres in order to accommodate the crowds of people out strolling and visitors to Berlin. The rows of trees, which have suffered the effects of city gas and thawing salt, are also being spruced up. For years strong silver linden and Kaiser's linden trees have been nurtured which will soon offer new shade amidst the hustle and bustle of the district Mitte.
5.Southern Friedrichstraße
To the south of Leipziger Straße the streams of Friedrichstraße fan out. Just behind Checkpoint Charlie, Kochstraße takes on the most important distribution function. The GSW ensemble of a green »pillbox« and the easily discernible ecological building with its distinctive red awnings has become the landmark of the street. Other new projects are now finished: the office centre Markgrafenpark and the Axel Springer Building with its shopping mall and the Ullsteinhalle which can accommodate up to 1,000 visitors.
The boom, which began on the Wall strip and came to be symbolised by new buildings at Checkpoint Charlie and Aldo Rossi's Schützen-Karree, has now spread to southern Friedrich-straße. The impetus extends as far as Askanischer Platz and politicians are also doing their bit here. The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development is based in the Europahaus, the Ministry of Finance on Wilhelmstraße. Between distinctive cultural buildings like the Tempodrom, Jewish Museum and the Martin Gropius building, the neighbourhood has plenty of space for every day inner city life. The area around south Friedrichstraße links Kreuzberg and the new centre, bringing together the best of both worlds.
6.Oranienstraße
Nights are long in Kreuzberg - not just because people are out and about until the early hours of the morning but because many of them work through the night. Against the backdrop of the Kreuzberg mixture of living and working the boundaries between private and professional life become blurred. The old production buildings are very much in demand today both as work and residential lofts.
In the 1970s the Land-owned Gewerbesiedlungs-Gesellschaft started the renovation work. Today, everyone has recognised that the old building fabric is valuable capital in any district. Industrial yards are particularly attractive to young, small and mid-sized companies. They like the high standard of living and housing: shops in the same building, cafés and leisure activities on the doorstep. From the Prinzenbad swimming pool there is direct access to the legendary underground Line 1. Multicultural influences and the in-scene do the rest and turn the district into a popular location for companies which employ young, creative people who are constantly looking for fresh ideas.
At the former border crossing point, Prinzenstraße and at the Engelbecken the neighbourhood heals the wounds of the divided city. The Schinkel riding hall has been refurbished and residential buildings and shopping malls have been added.
7.Potsdamer / Leipziger Platz
It is and remains the showcase of the new beginning after the political turnaround: Potsdamer Platz was first Europe's largest building site and then a symbol of the new centre of Berlin. For some years now, the DaimlerChrysler-Areal and Sony Center have been established features in the life of the city. It is not just the Berlinale Film Festival that attracts thousands of visitors every year. Berliners and visitors to Berlin have taken over the square - and along with it the Musical Theatre, the shops, cinemas, hotels and restaurants.
In the shadow of the new high-rise buildings the derelict plots, which had separated Potsdamer Platz up to now from the rest of the city, are also disappearing. On the Lenné triangle, the scaffold-ing at the Beisheim Center and the Ritz Carlton has been dismantled. Sun worshippers flock to the lawn of the Prachtgleis park between the Park Colonnades and the DaimlerChrysler-Areal during their break. The representative offices of several federal Länder have moved into the Ministers' Gardens.
The adjacent Leipziger Platz is also taking shape. On the southern half of the octagon the last three buildings are already stretching upwards. On its northern half the Canadian Embassy is soon to move in. As the neighbour of the Bundesrat, Leipziger Platz is shaping up nicely as an elegant variation of the busy locations on Potsdamer Platz.
8.Spree Area West
The water, which once attracted the manu-facturing industry, makes this location into an insider tip. The inner city quarters along the Spree in Moabit and Charlottenburg are increasingly coming into their own. Traces of bygone eras have been skilfully integrated into the urban landscape. The Federal Minister for Interior Affairs has taken up residence on the site of the former Bolle dairy; supermarkets and restaurants have moved into an old building of the milk supplier. Beside that an old winding tower stands resplendent in the high-tech centre Focus Teleport.
The historical oven buildings of the Königliche Porzellan Manufaktur (KPM Royal Porcelain Manufacture) have been converted into an event location of unique atmosphere. The KPM site makes up the centre of Spreestadt Charlottenburg, which is expanding daily between Spree and Landwehrkanal. Mercedes World on Salzufer and a neighbouring office tower have been finished. Next to Tiergarten station a new hotel will open soon, and right behind it, leading health care associations are about to move into their new office buildings.
Attention is increasingly focussing on the capital embodied in the numerous waterfront locations. This also applies to the Charlottenburg Spreebogen in which - around the technical production centre of the Technical University and Fraunhofer Institute - new office buildings are springing up on both sides of the Spree. Here, too, the old has not been sacrificed: In the lofts of the industrial yard Helmholtzstraße Osram once manufactured light bulbs, on Gotzkowsky bridge star architect Josef P. Kleihues successfully combined old warehouses with an ellipsoidal new building for the Spree-Forum.
9.City West
Everything points to the future. Amidst the daily hustle and bustle of thousands of people out for a stroll, the City West is giving itself a new face. Numerous new buildings are now occupied and give fresh impetus to the location.
For instance on Fasanenstraße. The Ludwig Erhard building with the Berlin Stock Exchange, the restored Delphi terraces at the Theater des Westens and the distinctive roof sail of the Kant triangle have transformed this street. Just a few metres away the Neues Kranzlereck provides the transparent backdrop for a similar new beginning on Joachimstaler Straße. Ku-Damm Karree and City Light House are now finished. Young inline skaters do the rounds on the roof of the Karstadt sports store, the former Bilka department store, which has been carefully refurbished in line with protected building provisions.
The urban heart of the region is still Breitscheidplatz with the Memorial Church. New light strips in the ground will soon bath the church in gentle light and turn night into day. All around the square projects are entering the final phase which will add further landmarks to the renowned Europa-Center: The Zoobogen ensemble with the Bikini building and Zoopalast are being converted; the car tunnel in front will soon disappear.
With the Zoo Window and another office tower, which will replace the barrier of the Schimmelpfeng Building and open up the square onto Kantstraße, stone exclamation marks of the new age are about to emerge.
10.Kurfürstendamm
None of the people strolling along Kurfürstendamm today is thinking about Bismarck. And yet it was the Iron Chancellor who laid the foundation stone for Berlin's lively boulevard. On his initiative the avenue was upgraded into a splendid boulevard in 1880.
Ku'damm acquired its legendary reputation in the 1920s. After that, its glory diminished somewhat. Today, the times are long forgotten when it was decried as a »meatball boulevard«. Despite all the predictions to the contrary, people are once again investing in Kurfürstendamm.
In any case, Berliners and visitors to Berlin never let short-sighted trend news prevent them from regularly frequenting the lifeline of the western city centre. The bourgeois residential buildings became home to a special form of the Berlin mixture of living and housing - with firms of lawyers, architects' offices and doctors' surgeries. Now, new office buildings are putting their 21st century stamp on Ku'damm.
The general public approves. Crowds of people flock to the new buildings who are out for a stroll, window-shopping or simply looking for ways to spend their money. Old-established institutions like the Kempinski have survived whilst a new generation of city dwellers now enjoy a Latte Macchiato during the office breaks. The ambience in the side streets is classy and bustling. Jil Sander moved in here at the end of the 1990s. Louis Vuitton, Prada, Cartier, Hermès, Burberry, Cerutti and Gianni Versace complete the picture today. Ku'damm is back in business.