The Beisheim Center is a building complex on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin‘s Tiergarten district. With the completion and opening of the Beisheim Center on January 10, 2004, the development of Potsdamer Platz and thus the largest project of the Berlin urban redevelopment was completed. The building is 70 meters high, with the metal tip on the roof it is 82 meters high. Otto Beisheim had it built for 463 million euros.
The building ensemble on the Lenné Triangle includes the hotels The Ritz-Carlton Berlin and Berlin Marriott International, an office building on Ebertstrasse, another office building on private roadBerliner Freiheit as well as the Tower Apartments above Ritz-Carlton and the Parkside Apartments on Henriette-Herz-Park and – on Lennéstraße – directly opposite the Großer Tiergarten. For the first time in Germany, the “Living with five-star plus hotel service” concept was implemented in the Beisheim Center – this means that the residents of the apartments can use both the services and the infrastructure of the Ritz-Carlton.
In contrast to the other neighbors on Potsdamer Platz, a shopping center and entertainment were dispensed when the Beisheim Center was built. In January 2009, the event venue “Berliner Freiheit” opened on a private road.
The architecture is based on the concept of the “compact city” with clear forms and modernist architecture made of stone. Except for the head building, all buildings have a uniform eaves height of 35 meters.
The five buildings were designed by four architects. The Tower Apartments, the hotel The Ritz-Carlton Berlin and the office building Berliner Freiheit 2 were designed by the architecture firm Hilmer & Sattler und Albrecht. They are reminiscent of the office buildings and first skyscrapers of the Chicago school as well as early high-rise architecture in Germany, as well as the nearby Kollhoff Tower.
The Parkside Apartments by David Chipperfield Architects from London and Berlin build on the tradition of “Stone Berlin”. Role models such as Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus are recognizable, whose architectural language Chipperfield transports into the 21st century. It has a light shell limestone facade.
Also involved in the project was the architectural office of Bernd Albers, who designed the Marriott Hotel with its vertically structured facade made of light limestone. Inside, it has a house-high atrium around which the rooms and suites are situated.
The office building at Ebertstrasse 2 was designed by the architectural firm Modersohn & Freiesleben, Berlin. The symmetrical natural stone facade was clad with Verde Salvan, whose irregular structure has a greenish shimmering color scale. The window parapets consist of floral aluminum ornaments based on a drawing by Louis Sullivan.
