Europahaus

Europahaus (English: House of Europe) is a large high-rise office block in Berlin, Germany, located in the Kreuzberg district on Stresemannstraße, facing the remains of the former Anhalter Bahnhof railway terminus across Askanischer Platz.

In 1924 a design competition was held for what was hailed as the largest new business premises in Berlin, occupying a key site south of Potsdamer Platz on what was then still called Königgrätzer Straße, renamed Stresemannstraße in 1930.

The competition was won by the architects Richard Bielenberg (1871-1929) and Josef Moser (1872-1963), who in 1906/07 had been responsible for the new construction of Hotel Fürstenhof on nearby Potsdamer Platz, but with a structure very different from the Expressionist architecture of the post-war redevelopment.

It possessed a 280 m (920 ft) long facade along Stresemannstraße, yet it was actually planned not as one monolithic building, but a group of individual but linked structures, of which the name Europahaus really applied only to the tall central section.

After 1933 the central office block was taken over by the Nazi government authorities, who had the neon signs removed and occupied it with numerous affiliated organisations, particularly the Reich Ministry of Labour.

Europahaus in 1936, showing the tall central section with Allianz and Odol signs, sandwiched between Europa Tanz Pavilion (left), and Deutschlandhaus with Europa Palast cinema (right)
Europahaus ruins 1945/46