Conversion and extension of the former British embassy in Berlin

Crystalline

The building “Unter den Linden 32-34“ was erected in the years 1970/71 according to the plans of the “Mehlan Collective” VEB Berlin project (design from 1960/61).

The property is part of the historically grown ensemble, a closed block structure in Dorotheenstadt. With the inventory building Unter den Linden 32-34, the majority of the adjoining buildings are listed in Berlin's list of monuments as historic buildings. Planned as an administrative building (amongst other things for the FDJ (Free German Youth)), the building was last used as the Berlin headquarters of the British Embassy.

The building, with a full basement area, consists of a reinforced concrete construction with lined parapet areas and bracing shear walls. The ceilings are developed as “Ackermann ceilings”, over the air-raid shelter as a solid reinforced concrete construction. On the courtyard-side the façade was plastered and the main façade had an uninsulated natural stone cladding.

On the ground floor the existing front building and the wing of a new building, which adjoins the old building in the eastern courtyard area, are entered without steps through a representative main entrance with an entrance foyer. One comes to two lifts and a main staircase that runs openly into the foyer area, whereby a development situation that typifies Berlin’s architectural history is picked up on and use by high-class retail and gastronomy areas on the ground floor as well as office use on the upper floors is attractively structured. Both parts of the building are connected to each other on every floor through the joint development and so there is a possibility of linkage or separate use for each new building or old building unit.

The refacing of the inventory building was carried out to meet the current requirements in accordance with the maintenance standards applicable to a listed building. The existing building structure has largely been preserved.

The smooth, precise façade of the new building consciously distances itself from the old building, both in its materiality, consisting of black natural stone and gold-coloured metal profiles, and in its crystalline, partially bevelled cubature. A fully glazed “joint” arises as a linking element between the building structures, which continue on the sixth floor as a penthouse-like staggered floor on the wing of the new building.