Europahaus

Europahaus
Europahaus in 2010
General information
Type	High-rise office building
Architectural style	New Objectivity
Address	Stresemannstraße
Town or city	Berlin
Country	Germany
Completed	1931
Opened	1926
Height	50m
Technical details
Floor count	11
Design and construction
Architect	Richard Bielenberg and Josef Moser

Europahaus (English: House of Europe) is a large high-rise office block in Berlin, Germany, located in the Kreuzberg district on Stresemannstraße, facing the remains of the former Anhalter Bahnhof railway terminus across Askanischer Platz. It was one of the first modern high-rise office buildings to be constructed in the city.

In 1924 a design competition was held for what was hailed as the largest new business premises in Berlin, occupying a key site south of Potsdamer Platz on what was then still called Königgrätzer Straße, renamed Stresemannstraße in 1930. The design included a general reorganisation of the gardens of the Prinz-Albrecht-Palais in the rear and also the Askanischer Platz area. The competition was won by the architects Richard Bielenberg (1871-1929) and Josef Moser (1872-1963), who in 1906/07 had been responsible for the new construction of Hotel Fürstenhof on nearby Potsdamer Platz, but with a structure very different from the Expressionist architecture of the post-war redevelopment. 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, the latter also doubling up as a cinema where some of Marlene Dietrich's films were premiered.

Building work then ground to a halt amid controversy over that prominent central section (Europahaus "proper"). A steel-framed construction, it was one of the first high-rise office blocks to be completed in Berlin. The design had to be revised several times, and then in 1929 Richard Bielenberg died, his place on the project being taken by Otto Firle (1889-1966), who is probably best remembered for designing the Lufthansa logo.

After much argument, Europahaus was finally completed in 1931, an ultra-modern building in the New Objectivity style, somewhat daring for its time. It possessed a 280 m (920 ft) 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 main tower-block contained 11 storeys with ground-level storefronts and offices above; with a roof "garden" facility making for a 12th floor. As it was much higher than any of the surrounding buildings at the time, rooftop patrons enjoyed excellent views of the city. Service structures and illuminated signage rose above this level. A lower northern section contained a large ballroom - the Europa Tanz Pavillion.