Swiss Embassy

© Christian Richter

Switzerland occupies one of the most prominent locations in Berlin with its embassy and simultaneously the only historical building in Spreebogen (the arc of the Spree River, where all government buildings stand), which has survived Speer's north-south axis, Grosse Halle, wartime bombings, and the Wall. After the war, Berlin lost its function as a government city, and the Swiss embassy, which had been here since 1920, found itself on a declining periphery.
The original building was constructed by Friedrich Hitzig (1870-71) as a city palace in the former prestigious district of Alsenviertel. In 1910-11, the palace was redesigned by Paul Baumgarten (among other works, the author of the Schwiller Theater on Bismarckstrasse), and in 1919 it was acquired by Switzerland. The design of the extension surprises primarily with its architectural abstraction: in the three-story cube of colored concrete, there are only three openings (one on the ground floor facing the street and two for windows). This arrangement reflects in an abstract plane the architectural divisions of the old palace. On the other sides, the building presents itself as an office building with standard window arrangements. The floor plan shows a clear order and an organized space. In this aspect, the building does not seek a connection to the existing structure; it wants to be a new self-sufficient house with a slightly recognizable function. For the actual modification of the palace, the architects retained the construction and aesthetic essence and further use it for the representative purposes of the residence and the consul.
The blind western wall was artistically treated by Helmut Federle, among other things, a co-creator of the spatial concept of Galerie Goetz in Munich and the color concept of the Vienna nursery Neue Welt Schule.