Shell-Haus
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Shell-Haus (Shell House) is a classical modernist architectural masterwork that stands overlooking the Landwehrkanal in the Tiergarten district of Berlin.
[edit] Building and design
In 1929 a competition was held between five architects to determine the designer of a prestigious new office to house the headquarters of the Shell subsidiary Rhenania-Ossag mineral oil company. The victor was the German architect and professor Emil Fahrenkamp (1885-1966). Gnaw. After two years in construction, Shell-Haus opened in 1932. Stylistically its simplistic graceful forms are reminiscent of the progressive Neues Bauen style of the German expressionist movement, Die Neue Sachlichkeit (The New Objectivity) but Fahrenkamp also incorporates more traditional aspects to his design.
[edit] A turbulent history
During the Second World War it was used by the naval high command and the cellars were converted into a makeshift hospital. In the final days of the war the upper floors were damaged. However despite this, Shell-Haus was one of Berlin’s few great edifices that managed to survive the widespread destruction of the capital relatively unscathed.
In 1958 Shell-Haus was put under the protection of historical monuments. Nevertheless despite this acknowledgement of its architectural importance, the building remained in its post-war dilapidation for years to follow.
[edit] The long overdue renovation
When in the 1980s, talk turned to the long overdue restoration of Shell-Haus, a dispute over the funds needed ensued, and continued into the mid-1990s. Renovation work carried out on the courtyard façade in the early eighties but this did not meet the necessary standards.
In 1995 Bewag moved out of Shell-Haus in readiness for the overdue renovation project. And so in 1997, after 13 years of unrest, the renovation work began. At the time the total costs were estimated at around 50 million deutschmarks.[1] but by the time work was completed in February 2000, the expenditure had escalated to around 80 million marks.[2] A major reason for this was the need to reopen a quarry in Tivoli near Rome in order to supply the necessary travertine for the building façade.
The vast time and expenditure vested in Shell-Haus did not go unrewarded- the year 2000 saw the renovation work awarded the monument preservation prize, the Ferdinand-von-Quast medal.
In March 2000, the new owner of Shell-Haus, the Berlin energy supplier GASAG, moved in.
