Haus Potsdam The six-storey building was designed by
Franz Heinrich Schwechten, who was also the architect of the
Anhalter Bahnhof and the
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It was constructed between 1911 and 1912 as Haus Potsdam. It was primarily an office building; from 1917 or 1919 until 1927
Universum Film AG or UfA, which owned the site, was headquartered there; but the lower floors contained a 1,196-seat cinema, called the Lichtspieltheater im Piccadillyhaus or the Kammerlichtspiele im Haus Potsdam (Cinematograph in the Piccadilly House, Moving Pictures in Haus Potsdam), and the Café Piccadilly. The building was faced with sandstone and gave the impression of masonry, but had a steel frame and the cinema space was spanned by five girders. At the northern end, facing the square, was a circular pavilion topped by a copper dome rising 35 metres above the pavement, with a row of
Attic statues beneath it; this was essentially a recreation of the mausoleum of the
Ostrogothic king
Theodoric the Great in
Ravenna. Behind it, a long, narrow section in a simplified
Wilhelmine architectural style, with a
mansard roof, extended some 100 metres alongside the
Potsdamer Bahnhof. The Café Piccadilly could accommodate some 2,500 guests and was lavishly decorated with wall and ceiling paintings and
Sienese marble. Operated by Heinrich Braun, it was an attraction comparable to the
Moulin Rouge in Paris, drawing "white collar workers, business people and tourists" by day, "amusement seekers, restaurant and variety patrons and also prostitutes" at night. After
World War I began in 1914, it was renamed to the more patriotic Café Vaterland.
Haus Vaterland Haus Potsdam became less successful during the 1920s, and in 1927 was sold to the Bank für Handel und Grundbesitz, which leased it for ten years to the
Kempinski family of restaurateurs. They had an exclusive contract to provide all food and drink and to manage the business, which became their flagship. In 1928, the building was reopened as Haus Vaterland, based on an idea by Leo Kronau, who had visited
Coney Island in
New York and wanted to emulate the international attractions in the
amusement parks there and improve on Berlin's own imitation, Lunapark. He persuaded the
Kempinski family, who had a 65-year track record of success as restaurateurs in Berlin, to convert Haus Potsdam into a
Haus der Nationen (house of nations), and became its first artistic director, arranging entertainment to suit the flavour of each of the gastronomic units. The architect for the conversion,
Carl Stahl-Urach, the architect for
Fritz Lang's
Doctor Mabuse films, modernised the exterior by applying stucco and in particular by wiring the domed section to be illuminated at night as an example of
Architecture of the Night (
Architektur der Nacht) or Light Architecture (
Licht-Architektur) The lettering around the rotunda was illuminated, and approximately 4,000 bulbs arranged in intersecting arcs on the dome turned on and off to create the illusion of spinning motion. A reporter in
Germania applauded the "Babylonian dome" as irrefutable evidence that "here, world-capital life is pulsing."
David Clay Large describes it as "a beacon of commercial kitsch". panoramas, and lighting effects, and served appropriate food; it was an early example of modern theme dining or experiential gastronomy. While the main shows took place in the ballroom, A central kitchen occupied the entire top floor, connected to the different dining establishments by pneumatic tubes, through which orders came up, and dumbwaiters, by means of which food was sent down and dirty dishes sent back up; conveyor belts at kitchen level transferred the dishes to be machine washed, dried and stacked. It published a house magazine called
Berolina - Latin for Berlin and most famously embodied in the statue in the
Alexanderplatz. It was an enormous and popular establishment, and like Haus Potsdam before it, is frequently alluded to in both artistic and tourist contexts, for example in
Irmgard Keun's 1932 novel
Das kunstseidene Mädchen (
The Artificial Silk Girl). Large sees it as having been "a kind of proto-Disney World". The building could accommodate up to 8,000 people; the 4,454 square metres of theme restaurants had a capacity of 3,500 people and Café Vaterland was the largest in the world; the one millionth guest was recorded in October 1929, barely a year after the opening.
Third Reich and World War II In the Nazi years, the mix of restaurants was modified and the
Jewish Kempinskis had to sell the building for a pittance to "Aryans" and leave the country. The business continued to host throngs of customers even after Berlin began to suffer heavy
bombing by the Allies. In 1943 the building was damaged, particularly in the central section, in the British night Air-raid on the nights of 22 and 23 November that destroyed much of the centre of the city including the department store
KaDeWe. On 3 February 1945 it was bombed out by the U.S.A.A.F. during a daylight raid, only the walls left standing. while because of its position on the sector lines, it was a hotbed of spying, flight from the East, and black marketing in currency and goods.
Destruction The building was finally completely burnt out on 17 June 1953, along with
Erich Mendelsohn's
Columbushaus, during the
East German strike and protest. It was then left in ruins, the windows simply being walled up. It was adjacent to the
Berlin Wall after its construction in 1961. In 1972, the
Senate of West Berlin bought the building as part of 8.5 hectares of land to build a road, and had it demolished in 1976. The 600 tonnes of iron and steel were sold as scrap. Ironically, when Potsdamer Platz was rebuilt after
German reunification, the site of Haus Vaterland was the only parcel on which no entertainment facility was sited, only offices, because it was felt to be too small. The new building abutting the square, which is part of the
Park Kolonnaden ensemble, was given a semi-circular façade in homage to the round section of the building which had once stood there. ==Description==