A reason for Petra Kahlfeldt to show her colors
GSW Hochhaus in Berlin, WELT author Marcus Woeller
Source: GWS Annette Kisling / Sauerbruch Hutton, Claudius Pflug
Outstanding contemporary architecture is rare in Berlin. Ironically, one of the most beautiful skyscrapers in the capital now threatens to be radically changed. The new Senate building director should make the case a top priority.
When you approach the former GSW high-rise in the afternoon – with the sun behind you – you see one of the most beautiful facades Berlin has to offer. Then the sun visors behind the slightly curved glass front on Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse in Kreuzberg shine in nine different shades of red, pink and orange. The house is a beacon in the capital, which is poor in outstanding contemporary architecture.
Architectural firm Sauerbruch Hutton became known in 1999 for this boldly swinging skyscraper crowned with a spoiler. It complements a modern office tower from the early 1960s (built by Schwebes and Schoszberger for Ullstein Verlag).
GSW high-rise made Sauerbruch Hutton famous
The high-rise has received several awards, including the Berlin Architecture Prize, for the striking color scheme and the underlying energy concept of natural ventilation. The building was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award and the Stirling Prize. The Museum of Modern Art in New York has included the architectural model in its collection.
GSW high-rise with award-winning sun protection system
Quelle: picture alliance/imageBROKER/Helmut Baar
However, the changing ownership situation alienated the owners of the house more and more from the quality that has been praised to this day. The non-profit settlement and housing association (GSW) no longer exists. In the red-red government under Klaus Wowereit, it was sold to investors in 2004 and was part of Deutsche Wohnen from 2013.
GSW rented the high-rise building and moved out seven years ago. Since then, it has been leased to start-ups from Rocket Internet SE (of which the Samwer brothers are shareholders), and Amazon is said to have also moved into parts of the building. The owners are represented by a Sienna Real Estate Property Management Germany – the preservation of the house in the sense of the architects is obviously indifferent to them.
In the course of a renovation of the building, which is now called “Rocket Tower”, the rotating and sliding aluminum panels of the sun protection system are not to be repaired, but replaced with banal, colorful roller blinds. Experts are outraged: the architects Daniel Libeskind, HG Merz and Volkwin Marg, the former Berlin Senate Building Director Regula Lüscher, but also artists such as Olafur Eliasson and Katharina Grosse have signed an open letter with Matthias Sauerbruch and Louisa Hutton to denounce this attack on a so prevent aesthetic and ecological building culture.
GSW skyscraper in the skyline of Berlin
Source: Annette Kisling
In the petition, which now has more than 4,000 signatures, they call for “refraining from the unnecessary disfigurement of this building through the unthinking replacement of the sun protection system, which is so central to the identity of the building.” The Association of German Architects Berlin is also taking action for the “preservation of the characteristic appearance” of the building.
The GSW high-rise has what it takes to become a monument. However, it cannot be placed under protection until it is thirty years old. However, only if it remains untouched. And for Petra Kahlfeldt, the new Senate Building Director, who has been accused of being reactionary, it would also be an opportunity to show her colors – even if Matthias Sauerbruch of all people is one of her harshest critics.