Bertha Berlin
The nine-story office building on Bertha-Benz-Straße was completed as the fourth and final component of the “Lehrter Stadtquartier”, master planned by O.M. Ungers in 1994, directly southwest of Berlin’s main railway station. The design corresponds to the existing three buildings of the complex, for which clear directives were given for the volumetric form, height and materiality. Following these guidelines, the building has a “static” and planer façade facing the city, while the two façades facing the center of the quadrant are articulated by folded surfaces. Additionally, it is segmented into a three-part program of base, body, and penthouse. The generous floor height of the first two levels offers space for two lobbies, several retail spaces, while the upper seven floors provide office rooms and a terrace on the ninth floor.
Above the transparent pedestal, narrow vertical fins of “Sellenberger Muschelkalk”, a light-colored shell limestone rooted in the Berlin building tradition, form a curtain wall of veil-like lightness: varying in depth, the fins stagger over 3 divisions per floor height, a pattern that forms a diagonal incremental gradient like a fabric cladding that lightens the heaviness of the overall building volume.
