BERLIN - the update thread

[CHapp]

Bon voyage & don't forget your camera!

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by one very bored guy

I have to check if there are flights from Frankfurt to Tempelhof, as I'd love to land in that airport before it closes.

Virgin has flights to Berlin Tempelhof for € 59 at this moment !

[Grumpy]

Spreedreieck

renderings : http://www.gruentuchernst.de/eng/berlin1/index.html

[one very bored guy]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

Virgin has flights to Berlin Tempelhof for € 59 at this moment !

Maybe from Brussels, but not Frankfurt unfortunately.

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by CHapp

Bon voyage & don't forget your camera!

Here you have some of them:

http://community.webshots.com/myphot...ecurity=IwjgkZ

[R@ptor]

Originally Posted by one very bored guy

I have to check if there are flights from Frankfurt to Tempelhof, as I'd love to land in that airport before it closes.

As far as I know there are no regular flights from Frankfurt to Tempelhof. But Cirrus Airlines flies to Tempelhof from Mannheim 3 times a day.

[Grumpy]

"Alexa" shopping centre U/C:





live cams :

cam1

cam2

[Grumpy]

Austrian embassy

[Grumpy]

Go ahead for new Berlin airport !



Presentation of the Latest Plans for the Capital’s New BBI Airport
The mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, the state premier of the state of Brandenburg, Matthias Platzeck, German federal transport minister, Wolfgang Tiefensee, and the managers of Berlin Airports presented the latest plans for the capital’s new BBI Airport at a joint press conference on Monday.

The project data are impressive:

* As a result of the extension work, Schönefeld Air-port will be expanded by an area measuring 970 hectares. In total the new airport will cover 1470 hectares or 2,000 football pitches.
* The midfield terminal will have six floors and the initial version will have enough space to handle 22 – 25 million passengers a year.
* According to current plans, the initial version of the terminal will have 16 jetways. Plans have also been drawn up to provide about ten walk board-ing positions.
* BBI will have more than 65 aircraft parking stands.
* Passengers at BBI will find everything ranging from domestic to European and even interconti-nental flights under one roof in the central termi-nal (“one roof concept”).
* As many as 6,500 passengers will take off or land during a typical peak business hour at BBI.
* The building costs for the airport amount to two billion euros. The costs for road and rail connec-tions and outside investments (e.g. car parks, ho-tels and conference centres) are not included in this figure.

Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, had this to say about the BBI plans: “Berlin will take a huge step forwards with BBI. We are expecting new intercontinental flights to come here and we believe that passenger numbers will continue to rise over the next few years. BBI is firmly anchored in the region with its distinctive architecture. I am certain that the new airport will be a fitting business card for the German capital.”

Matthias Platzeck, the state premier of Brandenburg, said he believed that BBI was the key project for the Ber-lin/Brandenburg region. “BBI is extremely important for the domestic economy. I am sticking to my guns: it will enable us to take off into the future. Everybody can now get an idea of what the new airport will look like by look-ing at the terminal architecture. This image will become reality over the next few years. It will also play its part in giving our region a new face.”

German federal transport minister Wolfgang Tiefensee stressed the importance of the airport for Germany as a whole: “In BBI, the German capital is obtaining an airport that can hold its own in the face of international services and competition. This will also set a clear signal for the regeneration of eastern Germany. BBI will not only stimu-late the employment market in the region around the capital, but it will also further reinforce the economic power of eastern Germany. We will also tackle the steps needed to provide excellent transport connections quickly, so that BBI can enter service as planned in 2011.”

BBI will provide the urgently needed airport for the region around the German capital to cover the volume of air traffic in the next few decades. Once the airport opens at the start of the 2011/2012 winter timetable with a capac-ity to handle 22 – 25 million passengers per annum, it will be possible to expand BBI in modules to handle as many as 40 million passengers, depending on the way that the market develops.

“Berlin Airports are already growing faster than the mar-ket at the moment. We will continue this success story with BBI. We are placing BBI on the market as an airport at the heart of Europe with a strong focus on European and intercontinental point-to-point traffic,” the CEO of Berlin Airports, Dieter Johannsen-Roth, said in summa-rising the marketing strategy.

“BBI will be one of a new generation of airports: func-tional, with clear lines, flooded with light and cosmopoli-tan. We will realise architecture to match this at low cost prices,” said BBI managing director Thomas Weyer. “Af-ter a start has been made on the building work in 2006, the major work needed for the new runway and the rail-way station will begin in 2007. Work on the terminal will start in 2008. Then the airport will start to take shape”.

Here is a summary of the airport of the future:

The architecture: With its echoes of regional architec-ture, BBI will clearly find its place in the region near the German capital. The terminal with its divided facades and clear geometric forms continues architectural ele-ments ranging from the Prussian designer Karl Friedrich Schinkel to the Bauhaus style. The central access road, which will be an avenue lined with trees, picks up charac-teristic features from the townscapes and countryside of the Berlin/Brandenburg region.

Check-in: The days of paper tickets are numbered. E-tickets will dominate the airport world of tomorrow. As a result, there will not only be 80 check-in desks, but also about 200 airline check-in machines at BBI. Passengers will then be able to use them to print out boarding cards themselves, e.g. for flights booked on the Internet.

Retail/Non-aviation: Modern journeys start at the airport of tomorrow after the security check. Shops and restau-rants, cafés and bars will be just as important at BBI as runways and check-in desks. There will also be top-class catering and retail facilities outside the security zone for visitors to BBI and hotels and conference centres in the AirportCity area.

Security: Airports of tomorrow will have even more stringent security areas than today. The EU Commission beefed up the security rules for airports at the beginning of 2006 once again. For example, these make personal checks on staff working at airports obligatory. As many as seven different flows of passengers (incoming, outgo-ing, transfer, EU, non-EU, Schengen, non-Schengen) will have to be strictly separated in future. The BBI planners have already taken these complex requirements into account in their work even before the ground-breaking ceremony takes place. This also enables them to mini-mise any loss of time possibly caused by tougher secu-rity rules. Modern identification processes will play an important role at BBI. Berlin Airports are already suc-cessfully testing biometric identity processes at Schöne-feld and Tegel Airports.

Ideal traffic connections: BBI will also have the best possible connections on the ground. It will be easy for passengers to reach the airport by car using the A 113 (new) motorway or the B 96a main road via a central terminal access road. Rail travellers will get off trains at the underground terminal station after the 20 minute trip from the main/Lehrter station and will be able to reach the terminal in a matter of minutes using the escalators and lifts.

Environmental compatibility: Environmental compati-bility plays a major role in the plans for BBI. Noise levels caused by aircraft on the ground are largely absorbed by the airport site because of the midfield concept. Rea-sonably priced operating and maintenance costs are an important part of the plans for BBI. The planners have attached particular importance to ideal energy consump-tion in the individual buildings. The plans not only include the use of highly innovative heat recovery systems, but renewable energy systems have also been integrated – e.g. geothermal energy or cooling systems using rain-water. An ecological building supervision process will minimise environmental pollution during building work (e.g. transferring protected species of animals, using low-noise building vehicles and low-noise asphalt for building roads). Comprehensive balancing and substitution meas-ures (e.g. the renaturation of an area measuring 2,000 hectares south of Berlin) will accompany the expansion of the airport.

source : http://www.berlin-airport.de

[Grumpy]

new development near Ostkreuz trainstation:

[Grumpy]

Time to put the spotlights on a famous bridge : Oberbaumbruecke



Static system
Historic massive vaults over seven bays with studded elevated railway viaduct (old), middle section of reinforced concrete. For elevated railway, new preflex continuous beams on pendulum frame and middle section as steel frame
Foundation
Spread pier foundations (old)
Equipment
Railway facilities, historical bridge facilities (weir towers, gables, coats of arms)
Design
1894: bridge construction office, head Dr. James Hobrecht and architect Otto Stahn, 1992: central construction and modern design Architect Dr. Santiago Calatrava Valls SA, Paris/Zürich and WKP Planungsbüro für Bauwesen GmbH, Berlin; Historical construction ABKB, Berlin, with Prof. Deiters, Berlin
Execution
Arge Wiederherstellung der Oberbaumbrücke Phillip Holzmann AG, Berlin; E. Heitkamp GmbH, Berlin; Gebr. Kemmer GmbH, Berlin

Building costs
approx. DM 70 million
Construction period
1894 - 1902
Refurbishment: 1992 - 1995
Overall length
150 m
Clear span of openings
7.50 m, 16 m, 19 m, 22 m, 19 m, 16 m, 7.50 m
Total width
27.90 m
Effective width
22 m
Building height
Middle opening 1 m
Bridge area
4,185 sq.m

The Oberbaumbrücke was constructed over the River Spree in 1724 as a wooden bridge. For centuries it was by far the longest bridge in Berlin. In 1894 it was renewed as a solid construction with seven vaults and a studded viaduct to accommodate the first elevated railway in Berlin. Because of its location in the border area between West and East Berlin, the bridge which was blown up during World War II could not be reinstated until after reunification as a link between the districts of Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. More extensive refurbishment of its historical appearance involved upgrading the road surface by using reinforced and pre-stressed concrete. The elevated railway was given a completely new load bearing construction. The middle opening was closed as a counter point to the form with a modern steel frame whereas in the side areas preflex supports on steel frames were incorporated into the viaduct. After specification of the definitive design, construction work could begin in 1992. In order to accelerate work, a temporary pedestrian bridge was erected downstream.

In time for the fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall the roadway and the lower side walkway were reopened on 9 November 1994. With the integration of the strutted frame in April 1995, the last gap was closed in the elevated railway connection to the station Warschauer Straße to the north of Oberbaumbrücke. This meant that the route extension could be used as planned in October 1995.

[mic of orion]

Austrian Embassy looks very nice

[Grumpy]

new development area : Wriezener Bahnhof

[Bergenser]

cool projects!

[Grumpy]

Famous spot for sale in Berlin

A premiere real estate address - once the location of one of pre- war Berlin's top department stores, later the home of a legendary night club in the reunited German capital - is up for sale.

Last week, the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany listed the 22,000-square-meter, or 5.4-acre, property on Leipziger Platz that belongs to the Wertheim family. It is the largest piece of undeveloped property remaining in the city center, and is expected to be worth millions of dollars.

Fabian Hüther, managing director of CB Richard Ellis in Berlin, was uneasy about quoting a price, saying only that the land would sell into the "three-digit millions."

A similar parcel of two hectares, or five acres, on Potsdamer Platz - which formerly belonged to the Wertheims - was sold for $150 million in 2000 by KarstadtQuelle, the country's largest department-store operator.

"The location is surely one of the most well-known in Berlin," Hüther said. "It's on a vital east-west street axis. It's in an area that's frequented by a lot of people, and one of the most attractive properties in that area."

Also, Hüther said, there are no limits on development. "I can't imagine such an opportunity will present itself again," he said.

But the Berlin commercial market has been anything but welcoming for investors recently. The roller-coaster years that followed the dot-com bust have passed, but a Deutsche Bank analyst, Tobias Just, said there is an oversupply. "It's not yet a market for core investors, if you don't have a property you can rent to the Treasury or Chancellery, for example," Just said.

The listing by CB Richard Ellis marks the end of a successful court battle that reflected the fractured history of Germany's capital.

"To say it was a twisted saga is greatly underestimated," said Gary Osen, a lawyer based in New Jersey. For four years, Osen has represented the Wertheim descendants in their quest to regain the vast holdings seized by the Nazi dictatorship in the 1930s.

The Jewish family had one of the most successful department store businesses in early 20th-century Germany, the crown jewel of which was the upscale store on Leipzigerstrasse.

The Nazis forced Georg Wertheim, then the head of the company's board, to leave the business and used its choice property for some of their most notorious buildings, including the Reich's Chancellery and Hitler's bunker. After Allied bombers laid waste to the site in 1944, the property entered a state of limbo.

"In the Cold War, it was the death strip, vacant lots, the buffer zone on the other side of the Wall," Osen said. "It was possibly the most worthless property around."

During the 1990s, the store's former vaults delighted ravers from all over the world as the home of Tresor, the city's legendary techno club.

In 1992 the Jewish claims conference, the group that helps distribute Nazi reparations, started a legal battle to get the former Wertheim properties in Berlin, including the Leipzigerstrasse address, back into the hands of the Wertheim heirs. The legal battle evolved into a political one in which the government briefly questioned the conference's claims and, in 2002, President George W. Bush and Gerhard Schröder, then chancellor of Germany, discussed the issue, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The German restitution authority ruled in the Wertheims' favor, and the government eventually withdrew its appeals. In October 2005, the German Administrative Court in Leipzig finally ruled in favor of the Wertheims and forced KarstadtQuelle, which had bought out Wertheim, to relinquish its claims on the Leipzigerstrasse property.

"I think for most of the family, pursuing this for the last umpteen years was more a matter of principle," Osen said. The claims conference will receive 20 percent of the sale proceeds, Osen said, with the family sharing the remainder.

source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/...s/reberlin.php

[Grumpy]

Berliner Schloss

some info in english : http://www.berliner-schloss.de/start...39&typ=main#39

[Grumpy]

Office Space Guide

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

- 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.

[Grumpy]

Spreestadt Charlottenburg:

[Grumpy]

Update Anschutz Areal



O2 World
What will be one of Europe's most modern, multifunctional arenas is to be constructed in the heart of Berlin, between Ostbahnhof and Oberbaumbrücke. With up to 17,000 seats and standing rooms, 59 entertainment suites, conference and party suites, as from 2008 Berlin will have the looked-for opportunity to host international upscale sport an entertainment events. A 1,800 m² LED installation at the 20,000 m² glass facade will work as a huge screen and inform vistitors and passers-by in a unique way.

The central location, right in the middle of town, combined with excellent transport connections via ICE, regional trains and S-Bahn and U-Bahn trains, will make the O2 World well attractive for Berlin and outside visitors. As a result of the close proximity to the Spree River and the already existent urban quarters of Oberbaum City and Spreespeicher, the site at the Berlin Ostbahnhof presents an extremely attractive area for modern business from the music, service and media industries to locate.

Anschutz Areal at Ostbahnhof
Owner:
Anschutz Entertainment Group
Detlef Kornett, Managing Director
Project management:
Kevin Murphy, Senior Vice President Development
Tel. +49 (30) 20 60 70 80,
Fax +49 (30) 20 60 70 810
E-mail: info@anschutz-entertainment-group.de
Project description:
Development of an urban quarter around the core of the multi-functional used O2 World
Location:
Area of the former east goods station in Berlin Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
Size of the area:
21 hectares
Gross floor space:
600.000 m²
General urbanistic target:
Development of an lively urban area between the traffic junctions Ostbahnhof and Warschauer Brücke as a meeting place of sports and recreation, economy and culture, work and housing - with the o2 World as an urbanistic core.
Mission:
Urbanistic development and connection of the site at the former east goods station with the post area in the west, the area at the Warschauer Straße in the east and the Spreespeicher. Inclusion of the southerly located Mühlenstraße with East-Side-Gallery and Spreeuferpark under removal of the barriers between Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg.
Use: Entertainment, gastronomy, retail, offices, hotels and housing
Medien-Büro Berlin:
Schröder+Schömbs PR,
Project director: Melanie Sommer-Jöst,
Tel. 030 – 349 96 4 14, Fax 030 – 349 96 479
Email: melanie@s-plus-s.com

O2 World
Investor:
Anschutz Entertainment Group
Represented by:
Detlef Kornett, Managing Director, Anschutz Entertainment Group
Tel. +49 (30) 20 60 70 80,
Fax +49 (30) 20 60 70 810
E-mail: info@anschutz-entertainment-group.de
Project description:
Multi-functional hall for music, entertainment and sport events
Location:
At the former Ostgüterbahnhof (Berlin Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg)
Size of the area:
approx. 30,000 m²
Gross floor space:
58,000 m²
Arena Dimensions:
Lenght: 160 m; Width: 130 m; Height: 35 m
Capacity of seats:
up to 17,000 seats and standing rooms
Suites:
59 entertainment suites, conference and party suites
Restaurant:
600 seats
Urbanisation around O2 World:
Entertainment quarter, gastronomy, office buildings, hotels, retailers, apartment houses
Parking space:
Approx. 1,200 sites for the O2 World
Transportation connections:
ICE high-speed trains, regional trains and public transportation
Financing:
150 million, private equity of the multi-functional hall by Anschutz Entertainment Group
Website:
www.o2-world.de
Construction time:
24 months, opening 2008
Medien-Büro Berlin:
Schröder+Schömbs PR,
Project director: Melanie Sommer-Jöst,
Tel. 030 – 349 96 4 14, Fax 030 – 349 96 479
Email: melanie@s-plus-s.com

O2 World: Figures & Facts

General

* The opening is planned for the summer of 2008
* The costs for the Arena construction project will amount to EUR 150 million
* The construction period will presumably amount to 24 months

Capacities

* Maximum capacity of up to 17,000 seats and standing room
* 59 entertainment suites
* Conference suites and party suites

Size and Technical Data

* Length: 160 m, width: 130 m, height: 35 m
* Gross cubic content: approximately 500,000 m³
* Total area of the site: 180,000 m²
* Total area of Arena: 60,000 m²
* Plaza areas: 12,000 m²
* Road and access facilities: 48,000 m²
* Maximum area vor events: 60m x 40m
* Ice hockey playing field: 60m x 30m

Technical Facilities

* The distributed ceiling load capacity amounts to 500kg/m² for the normal area and 750 - 1,000 kg/m² for the area housing mechanical facilities
* 4 truck accessways into the interior of the Arena
* Load applied to the roof
o From the steel roof above the stage: 67 tonnes (distributed)
o In front of the stage - from the main roof 67 tonnes (distributed), approximately 2/3 of the main roof

LED Façade

* Semi-circle glass façade (105 degrees), width: 120 m; height: 15 m
* 1,800 m² LED installation with 300,000 LED clusters

Concession Stands / Restaurants

* Restaurants (Premium Lounge, Dinner Club)
* 88 points of sale
* 2 stores

Locker Rooms / Dressing Rooms

* 6 locker rooms
* 4 star dressing rooms

Building Statistics

* The façade area of the Arena is approximately 20,000 m² in size
* The steel construction of the roof weighs approximately 1,770 tonnes
* The ice surface of the Arena covers 1,800 m²
* Approximately 35,000 m³ of concrete and approximately 7,000 tonnes of steel reinforcement are required for the body shell work of the Arena
* Approximately 1,500 tonnes of steel are required for the roof

location:

[Grumpy]

The Berlin Academy of Architecture



The Academy of Architecture , erected by Friedrich Schinkel between 1832 – 36, was, for its time, a provocatively unadorned, modern, but at the same time prestigious building, which did not please contemporaries. Today, it is still regarded as Schinkel’s most momentous piece of work. The institutions which occupied the building over the years have also contributed to its fame, however. Firstly, the Prussian Academy of Architecture and Supreme Construction Deputation, and after the First World War, the German School of Politics took up residence there.

The foundation of the Academy of Architecture Sponsor Association , constitutes a solid perspective for the reconstruction of the Academy and its use. There are plans to develop a collection of documents regarding the architectural history of Berlin. The combination of private and public involvement is expected to lead to the creation of a new exhibition and competence centre for architecture and construction in Berlin.

Academy of Architecture - View from 1905


Academy of Architecture - Painting of Gärtner