This had never been done before. Workers and engineers sawed a 1,300-ton hall out of a building and packed it up. They put it on rails and moved it with hydraulic presses. In March 1996, the magnificent Kaisersaal travelled almost 70 metres. It had survived the previous years in the remains of the luxury hotel Esplanade near the Potsdamer Platz. The Second World War had severely damaged the hotel and many other buildings. The Berlin Wall, which ran here from 1961 to 1989, finally left the square desolate. Most of the ruins were eventually removed. And so the authorities wanted at least the Kaisersaal to be preserved.
The Japanese electronics company Sony built a new city district where the Kaisersaal used to be. In order to be able to plan without restrictions, Sony had the Kaisersaal moved. The company paid the cost of 50 million D-Marks for this endeavour. The Potsdamer Platz was the largest and most famous of Berlin’s many construction sites. For decades, the heart of the capital beat here. Berlin’s first traffic light controlled the beginnings of automobile traffic, and people swarmed around hotels and variety shows. Then came war and division.
With the fall of the Wall in November 1989, the deserted Potsdamer Platz was suddenly back in the centre of the city. And Berlin was suddenly back in the centre of Europe. Everyone expected the city to once again become the hub it once was. An economic boom seemed to be inevitable. Thus, two global corporations also turn their eye to the city and the square. In addition to Sony, the German carmaker Daimler-Benz wanted to settle there.
But how should the empty space left by history be filled? Urban planners, architects and the public debated passionately. The representatives of the so-called "critical reconstruction" won. This meant that the old street layout should be made visible again. Skyscraper were unwanted, a uniform height was prescribed. Stone facades with windows instead of large blank surfaces of glass and steel were to characterise the face of the new quarter.
The major investors spent eight billion D-Marks on the Potsdamer Platz, and 700,000 square metres of space for offices, stores, apartments and cultural venues were built. But the so-called "Berlin mix" of housing and commerce was incomplete. There was no school, no kindergarten, no retirement home, but all the more offices and stores. The architects and developers also succeeded in softening the structural specifications. At 35 metres, the height of the buildings was 13 metres above the otherwise regulated measurement. Four high-rise buildings tower over the neighbourhood.
Especially under the striking tent roof of the Sony Center, there is a lot of activity. A restaurant has taken up residence in the Kaisersaal, which stood empty for years after it had been moved. Yet the company that had it moved no longer owns it. The expected Berlin boom did not begin until 2010, after a twenty-year delay. Sony and Daimler-Benz had already sold their former prestige projects to real estate companies. Thus, the district of the large corporations reminds of the initially disappointed hope for the great upswing.
