Spreedreieck - Friedrichstrasse 140, Berlin, Germany



Architect
Mark Braun Architects
Date Built
2008
Location
Beside Friedrichstrasse Station
Description
This building sits on a site beside the River Spree and Friedrichstrasse Station.  It comprises two curving interconnected towers occupied by Ernst & Young.  Apparently the original design called for a forty-storey building but in the end it was scaled back to a much more modest 12-storeys responding to concerns expressed by the residents of other buildings in the vicinity.



The site has interesting historical connections because it was here in the early 1920s that the architect Mies van der Rohe proposed to locate a startling glass skyscraper.  His first design in 1921 was replaced a year later by an even more radical plan.  He was proposing a new and apparently untried building system involving steel structures that eliminated the need for the walls to be load-bearing.  This allowed him to propose a glass-walled building.  Neither of his designs came to fruition but Mies van der Rohe went on to build numerous glass skyscrapers in Chicago and New York.  I have seen it suggested that Braun's design was in homage to Mies van de Rohe's unbuilt towers.