Sewage Pumping Station VII of the Radial System (1883)

State-of-the-Art Sanitation – To treat sewage and pump it out of the city, urban planner James Hobrecht introduced the radial system in 1873.
By 1909, twelve sewage pumping stations had been set up throughout Berlin. Along with the supply of drinking water, this innovation drastically reduced the mortality rate of the quickly growing population. Pumping Station VII was built in 1883, in a narrow courtyard amidst the typical Berlin tenements and workshops. It was shut down 100 years later but was preserved almost in its entirety. Even the circular sand trap is still there, where water was once purified before it was pumped to the sewage farm on the edge of the city. The youth center Die Pumpe opened there in 1989, with cultural offerings and event catering in the historic hall with the double-piston pump.