Scharnhorst Substation (1927)

This substation has a special feature: a glass observation post 25 meters high for supervising the city’s streetlights. Down to the 1940s, an employee decided the right time to turn the lights on and off. Hans Heinrich Müller, chief architect for the Berlin electric company Bewag, developed a modern style of architecture that venerated electricity as if it were holy. His “cathedrals of electricity” symbolize the great importance substations had for the city’s rapid urban and industrial development. Scharnhorst substation is currently known as the Vattenfall Building, after the power company that now occupies it, and houses central administration and the customer service department.