The Dong Xuan Center is an Asianwholesale market on Herzbergstrasse in the Berlin district of Lichtenberg in the Lichtenberg district. It was developed from the late 1990s on the former site of Siemens Plania AG, partly using existing industrial and administrative buildings. Expansions and new uses are constantly taking place. The focus is on sales, services and, from 2024, cultural events. The model and namesake of the Berlin Dong Xuan Center is the Dong Xuan Market in Hanoi, which was built in 1889 and is the largest and oldest market in the Vietnamese capital.
Like many contract workers in the GDR, Nguyễn Văn Hiền became unemployed with German reunification. Immediately after reunification, he started his own business and sold clothing. He purchased new goods from a wholesale company in Poland. Here he regularly met colleagues from Berlin. That gave him the crucial idea of offering everything in Berlin himself in the future. In 2005, he implemented his idea of a trade center and founded the Dong Xuan Center. At the end of the 2010s, people from all over the world were already taking advantage of the wide range of textiles, Far Eastern food and services.
At the end of the 2010s, a wide range of wholesale goods, catering and various services were offered in six sales halls, each with a size of 6,500 square meters of sales space and two large warehouses. The first construction phase, the conversion of a former VEB Elektrokohle laboratory building into a DXC guest house, was completed in spring 2017.
From 2015 to 2023, the second construction phase on Herzbergstrasse, the revival of the VEB Elektrokohle Lichtenberg cultural center, which opened in 1952, was realized while preserving the original character and in coordination with the monument office into a modern cultural center, the Dong Xuan House. First, the centerpiece, the flat cultural hall, was demolished. The three-story buildings on both sides remained standing and were gutted. In the summer of 2019, a new foundation was built on the old area, which results in a compact building together with the wings of the same height. The shell was completed at the end of 2022, delayed due to the corona pandemic. After the interior work, the new Dong Xuan House (also known as the Dong Xuan Guest House) was scheduled to open at the end of 2022. The management of the Dong Xuan Group invested around 25 million euros in the renovation work.
