Kühlhaus Berlin
Kühlhaus Berlin is a cultural landmark, and a unique example of pre-war industrial architecture. Today, it is an event location. A place of energy, a dynamic place, a place that moves with the heartbeat of the city and constantly reinvents itself. It offers a multitude of unique and extraordinary rooms and architectural situations on a space of more than five thousand square meters.
The house is suitable for a vast selection of events. From trade fairs, conventions, conferences and exhibitions to catered happenings, festivals, concerts and workshops, to name just a few.
Kühlhaus Berlin is located at the junction of the districts of Schöneberg and Kreuzberg, with Mitte only a stone’s throw away. As such, it is easily accessible by both car and public transport, with S- and U-Bahn stations as well as bus stops within walking distance. Despite being located very centrally, the spaces are calm, quiet and inspiring – the Landwehr Canal and the Gleisdreieck Park offer green spaces to relax in, and the Potsdamer Straße with its many restaurants, boutiques and galleries is close by. The BRLO Brwhouse, one of Berlin’s most interesting craft beer manufacturers, is just down the road. The location emphasizes accessibility and is wheelchair friendly.
Kühlhaus Berlin has been changing and evolving constantly since the nineties, when it was first established as an event space and art gallery and since then has become a listed building. Today, many years later, the work is ongoing and the Kühlhaus team strives to improve the house and its services constantly.
History:
The Society for Market Halls and Cold Storage was founded in Hamburg in the year 1890. Six years later, they commissioned their first compound in Berlin, an ice factory with a cold storage unit attached to it.
However, the demand for fresh produce kept increasing, and the facilities were soon incapable of handling the amount of trade going through them. As a result of this, in the year 1901, Europe’s biggest cold storage unit was built on a plot between Luckenwalder and Trebbiner Straße, along with the Gleisdreieck rail station.
The compound consisted of three buildings, Kühlhaus I, Kühlhaus II, and an administration building. The two storage units measured more than nine thousand square meters and even had their own connection to the city’s railway network through Anhalter Güterbahnhof.
The compound is a neo-gothic building, evoking memories of the unique brick buildings of northern Germany. The building’s endoskeleton, however, was modern in both style and function, and made from steel. For the first time on a large scale, reinforced concrete was used for the ceilings of the separate floors.
In the fifties, the building was used as a storage hall for the city’s emergency reserves, since it suffered virtually no damage in the war. Many of the decorative elements on the roof and the façade were removed at this time.
Despite the excellent state they were in, the city decided to demolish the southernmost buildings of the compound in 1979. Only the Kühlhaus II was left, and its days were also numbered – plans were already made to destroy the building.
Kühlhaus II was saved and then listed through the efforts of the architect Dr. Helmut Meier.
