residence 01 Henselmann Tower 06 The couple’s bedroom Henselmann Tower 02 Mosaics in the foyer has plenty of light 03 Plaque of Wilhelm Pieck 07 Retro-style stereo 04 Constantin Thun in 08 Inside Molitor and his kitchen Thun’s flat 05 Marie-Christine Molitor and Thun people’s palace —

Preface 04 Karl-Marx-Allee was the most famous street in the GDR, lined with socialist- Tt 50 era ‘palaces of the workers’. These apartment blocks are now attracting a discerning crowd and fostering a creative community – and the Henselmann Tower is the big red star. writer Kimberly Bradley photographer Thomas Meyer

05 New Berliners often gasp the first time The residents 1 they see Karl-Marx-Allee, a boulevard tra- Marie-Christine versing what was once , created Molitor and in the early 1950s to celebrate socialism. Constantin Thun Even 27 years after German unification, The couple waited six its monumental buildings unfold in a months to decide whether strange grandeur, one of a bygone utopia. to move into an 11th- It was in these Soviet-style socialist-realist floor apartment, which Zuckerbäckerstil (wedding-cake style) they’ve been renting since apartment buildings that Communist November. But they are thrilled with the decision party functionaries once lived. so far. “We can see all the Two symmetrical towers guard way to the Teufelsberg,” Strausberger Platz, a fountained round- says Thun, looking through about and the Allee’s western gateway. 01 06 the floor-to-ceiiing bedroom One of them, a 14-storey edifice at windows at what was once an Allied spy station on a number 19, has become an urban icon. hill in West Berlin. When it was completed in 1954 its cre- The couple, who ator, Hermann Henselmann, was chief work in the art world, architect of the German Democratic sits at a table made by Henselmann’s colleague Republic (gdr). The building was one Egon Eiermann; the work of the most desirable places to live in the surface in the galley gdr and it’s still hot property more than kitchen was originally 60 years later. Now, new and old resi- Henselmann’s desk. “The dents make up a creative community that apartment is old but there are so many things here reflects post-wall Berlin’s plurality. that are practical,” she Henselmann, known to be a proud, says, referring to a built- charismatic man, masterminded much in kitchen cabinet with of Karl-Marx-Allee (the street’s original perforations to keep food name was Stalinallee) and many of East and drinks cool. Both admit the surrounding area Berlin’s landmarks, including early drafts is a bit isolated, “but it of its ultimate icon: the ball-on-a-stick TV doesn’t matter”, says Thun. tower. But Strausberger Platz 19 was the “The neighbourhood is building he called home, as did his wife the building.” Irene and their eight children. 02 03 07 08 124 — issue 90 issue 90 — 125 residence The resident 2 01 ‘Texte zur Kunst’ office in Henselmann Tower Sabine Ofenbach the Henselmann Tower 02 Cuckoo clock in Texte zur Kunst (Texts the kitchen of ‘Texte on Art), a quarterly art- zur Kunst’ theory journal that has 03 Sabine Ofenbach, just celebrated its 25th managing director anniversary, has been 04 ‘Texte zur Kunst’ produced on the sixth headquarters floor of the Henselmann 05 Eva-Maria Steidel’s Tower since 2008. “There streamlined kitchen is a real community in 06 Slick bathroom the building; the mixture 07 Steidel’s minimalist style of people is exciting,” 08 Steidel has lived in the says Sabine Ofenbach, tower since 2009 the magazine’s managing director. The five-room apartment acts as the office Tt 50 and boasts comfortable, well-proportioned rooms, abundant natural light and typical Henselmann storage closets and shelving, as well as plenty of wall space for the art editions that are offered to subscribers and collectors. “It’s fantastic to work here,” says Ofenbach. “I especially love the sunsets in the evenings.”

01 05 06 Originally called “Haus des Kindes” The resident 3 (House of the Child), it lived up to its Eva-Maria Steidel name: the first two floors contained A Berlin resident since the a children’s department store (now a 1970s, Eva-Maria Steidel BoConcept furniture shop). There was The building was one of the was long intrigued by the also a children’s cinema and a puppet most desirable places to live in Henselmann Tower, which theatre and on the upper storeys there she likens to a lighthouse. the gdr; it’s still hot property Tt 50 Now the building is an overlooks Karl-Marx-Allee, was a kids’ café (alas closed in the 1970s; more than 60 years later important part of her life’s which she now uses as her later Stasi surveillance devices were work. The architecture own; only the bathroom found inside apartments that overlook connoisseur has lived was completely revamped. the 90-metre-wide Allee). Lucky resi- in Henselmann’s former She’s been pivotal in dents were selected in part via a special apartment since 2009; shaping the building’s her minimalist decorative community and has even lottery or their positions in the party. style, complete with applied to Unesco so that 02 The Henselmanns occupied two stately transparent furniture, Karl-Marx-Allee and its apartments on the seventh floor; one allows his architectural West Berlin counterpart, for the adults and an adjoining one for elements to serve as the Hansaviertel, might the kids. The building was dubbed the the main focal point. one day be recognised Tt 50 Steidel restored the as a dual heritage site. Henselmann Tower in 2005, which is apartment using old “When I come home I’m how many Berliners know it today. photographs, including extremely happy; I open From afar the tower (with its mirror Henselmann’s office that the door and just say, ‘Ah’.” twin Haus Berlin across the square) is a study in neoclassical proportions; Henselmann was inspired by his Prussian forerunner, architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Up close there is plenty of evi- dence of the building’s original mission: above the main colonnaded entrance is a quote from Goethe’s Faust that refers to free people on free land. Near another entrance is a plaque with the name of the gdr’s first president, Wilhelm Pieck. Inside in the foyer, mosaics depict happy families and scenes of Berlin. Two lifts speed up the building and even in the 03 04 07 08 126 — issue 90 issue 90 — 127 residence 01 Ingrid Roosen-Trinks has Henselmann Tower a diverse art collection 02 Thorsten Brinkmann art in the dining room 03 Helmut Trinks 04 Pierre Jorge Gonzalez’s apartment 05 Architecture firm Gonzalez Haase The residents 4 operates from the tower Ingrid Roosen-Trinks 06 Gonzalez and business and Helmut Trinks partner Judith Haase 07 Books in Gonzalez’s Ingrid Roosen-Trinks and apartment her husband, Helmut, first bought their apartment here 11 years ago. When 04 the original tenants moved out four years ago, Ingrid Tt 50 began a soft update. “When we renovated, we found all the wires that the Stasi had left,” she says. Now Ingrid fills the apartment with a portion 05 of her vast art collection. A microphone near the door, a conceptual piece by Berlin- based artist Jason Dodge, alludes to East German surveillance. Walls and floors are packed with works by artists such as Taryn Simon, 01 Olafur Eliasson, Jonathan Meese, Thorsten Brinkmann Steidel has been a quiet but diligent and Jorinde Voigt; furniture community-builder for the Henselmann is mostly mid-century. The couple switched the Tower, as well as other parts of the position of the kitchen and Karl-Marx-Allee ensemble, ever since, bedroom but retained many bringing in people from Berlin’s artistic of Henselmann’s original and creative scenes whenever a space details, such as the Bakelite 06 becomes free. Some apartments have door handles. There is a 1950s each unit had an intercom, cen- The residents 5 longtime tenants from before the Wende clear view from the living Pierre Jorge Gonzalez tral heating and each floor had a rubbish room that stretches along (the fall of the wall) but many others have chute that carried waste to a basement. Karl-Marx-Allee’s long axis; and Judith Haase been purchased or rented by film-mak- “From here you can see all ers, journalists, art collectors, German Upstairs most storeys have generous Architects Pierre Jorge landings and apartments have panelled the way to Moscow,” says pop stars, the Gonzalez Haase architec- Ingrid, smiling. Gonzalez and Judith Haase wooden doors. Units vary in size and divided a larger space into ture office, the offices of art-theory mag- layout but some features are univer- 02 an apartment for Gonzalez azine Texte zur Kunst and most recently sal. In front of floor-to-ceiling French often worked with her husband, making and an office where they the young art-world couple Constantin work with their team. This windows are curlicued metal railings by sure that God stayed in the details. was originally a commercial Thun and Marie-Christine Molitor, who sculptor Fritz Kuehn. The milky win- The Berlin Wall, of course, fell in space; the ceilings are moved into an 11th-floor, one-bed apart- dows in doors dividing adjoining rooms 1989. In the following 15 years or so the 4.7 metres high and there ment in 2015. have a diamond pattern that plays with buildings on Karl-Marx-Allee were sold are oversized windows. In 1952, Henselmann said the “tower light on sunny days. Radiators are clad to banks and investors and renovated one The structural elements is for our people... an expression of stead- of the ceilings have been with sculptural slatted covers and many by one. Around 2004, art and architec- left exposed. “Filling these fastness, endurance and strength”. After of the original Bakelite door handles are ture aficionado Eva-Maria Steidel first bones – and having this all this time it remains rock solid, even if still here, as are built-in cabinets and visited Number 19 at a dinner party incredible light coming its original ideologies are from eras ago. herringbone-wood floors. Some of the hosted by Isa Henselmann, one of the through the large windows Overlooking Europe’s last grand bou- kitchen cabinets are even ventilated to architect’s daughters (Henselmann died – makes the space really levard (which these days feels more like unique,” says Gonzalez. act as natural cooling boxes. in 1995; his widow Irene lived in the He and Haase marvel at an emerging Park Avenue than Soviet Each room has a different ceiling building until the late 2000s; Isa currently the tower. “The building is like Moscow), the tower’s grandeur and height, depending on function: with the lives on the seventh floor).S teidel already a steamship,” says Haase. exquisite architecture are still sought after. intended living rooms highest; bedrooms owned two apartments that had belonged Gonzalez adds: “You’re right Isa remembers shovelling postwar rubble and baths a few centimetres lower. Built-in to , the West Berlin archi- in the centre of the city but as well as the luminaries who would visit you remain isolated in the ceiling grooves in front of windows are tect who designed the city’s Philharmonic tower by its monumentality. her parents, such as and meant for curtain rods. Behind many of and Kulturforum. In the mid-2000s she This is a reminder of how Philip Johnson. A deep sense of quality, these features is Irene Henselmann, who snagged Henselmann’s former apartment architecture can be used to creativity and community are all, amaz- was never certified as an architect but as well and moved in in 2009. underline a political system.” ingly, still here. — (m) 03 07 128 — issue 90 issue 90 — 129