Cannon Foundry Workshop (1874)
Symbol of Prussian Military Industry – Buildings associated with the Royal Cannon Foundry began appearing in the shadow of the Citadel in 1854. Two are still standing: the workshop, built in 1874 in the style of Schinkel, and a hall dating to 1915. It initially focused on bronze cannon, but later gun barrels of all calibers were bored there. In the wake of German demilitarization after WWI, bed frames, agricultural machines, and cars were produced there. During the Weimar Republic, secret preparations for military production took place that then benefited the Nazi regime. During the Cold War, the facility was used for grain storage for the Senate Reserve, a stockpile of resources created in case the city was blockaded again. After standing empty for decades, an office park with a waterfront café and a dock are now planned.

Ehemaliger Bahnhof Wernerwerk
Station on the Siemensbahn – Despite the new housing developments, only a small portion of the company’s 55,000 employees lived in Siemensstadt in 1927. Many had to rely on public transportation. To help them get to work quickly, the Siemensbahn (Siemens Railway) was built. It crossed the industrial sections of Siemensstadt on viaducts. After only two years of construction, electric trains were running every five minutes. Service stopped in 1980, while Berlin was a divided city. After lying dormant for 40 years, the railway is now being reactivated. In 2029, marking its 100-year anniversary, the historic train line will once again be in service. This will also make the Siemensstadt2 development more accessible.

Garrison Washhouse (1880)
From Steam Laundry to Brewery – The Prussian soldiers who lived in Spandau around 1880 had to be supplied with clothing and food. In addition to the army laundry (with its own boiler house and water tower), the garrison bakery and the army commissariat were also located on the base. Brauhaus Spandau has been serving its own beer here since 1994.

Haselhorst Reich Research Housing Development (1930 –1935)
Hidden Gem of Modern Housing – “First the kitchen, then the facade!,” demanded Marie- Elisabeth Lüders, an assemblywoman during the Weimar Republic. She initiated the building of this housing development by the “Reich Research Society for Economic Efficiency in Building and Housing.” The society’s aim was to build affordable apartments with functional floor plans, and also to research efficient construction methods and inexpensive raw materials. The result was the largest state-sponsored housing development of the Weimar Republic, designed by Fred Forbát, Otto Bartning, Paul Mebes, and Paul Emmerich. The inexpensive construction was a success: 37% of the tenants were manual laborers, 42% were office workers. The Reich Research Society was dissolved in 1931 for political reasons, but the Gewobag property company was able to continue working on the housing development until 1935.
TIP: Visit a historic apartment at the Haselhorst Development, Burscheider Weg 21 | 13599 Berlin: gewobag.de/soziales-engagement/stadtteilinfos/spandau haselhorst/museumswohnung/

High-Rise Switchgear Plant (1928)
Europe’s First High-Rise Factory – Alternating current proved more efficient than direct current, but it required special switchgear. Hans Hertlein added a high-rise to the flat-roofed switchgear factory, originally built in 1917. The new steel-frame building became an icon of industrial history. Its 175-meter-long production floors were breathtaking. External piers allowed for workbenches to run continuously along the glass facade, where they were illuminated by daylight. Hertlein placed stairwells, elevators, and other rooms in lateral towers. The sober architecture became a Siemens trademark and a prototype for future industrial building. Today the high-rise is home to an education and advanced training center.

Jungfernheide Public Park (1926)
Former Parade Ground and Shooting Range – The park opened in 1926 and was named after the nuns of the old Spandau convent. 100 years earlier, the area was used militarily: Spandau convent. 100 years earlier, the area was used militarily: as a parade ground, shooting range, and starting in 1896 as the location of the first airship battalion. After WWI, military aviation was forbidden, and the hangars were torn down. The park’s construction was financed as part of an emergency employment program. This program led to public parks and recreation areas being opened all over Berlin for the city’s growing population. Jungfernheide Park included athletic fields, playgrounds, a youth camp, a water tower, a beach area, and an open-air theater. The latter site is now home to the Kulturbiergarten.

Munitions Factory (before 1897)
A few buildings remain of what was once a munitions factory, yet another part of the Prussian armaments industry. In the 1920s, the facility was repurposed for automobiles. From 1928 to 1940 it produced rear-wheel-drive cars for the DKW company. Later, it also turned out chassis for front-wheel-drive models. In the 1960s, after Auto Union was taken over by Volkswagen, the car factory closed. Where transmissions were once built, super sports cars and classic cars have been on display since 2019. MOTORWORLD carried out a historic restoration of the old hardening shop with the sawtooth roof. There will also be new buildings for showrooms, workshops, and retail space devoted to the automotive world. A container hotel is also planned, as are event locations and a beer garden.

OSRAM Glassworks (1927)
Fire, sand and quartz: In the glassworks with eight furnaces, glass tubes are drawn from 1927 to the present day for the production of various lamps, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Before the First World War, the manufacture of light bulbs was a core growth area in the electronics industry. The light bulb, which has been in production since 1905, has contributed to this development. As early as 1906, the Deutsche Glasglühlicht-Anstalt registered the trademark OSRAM. The name is a neologism of osmium and tungsten, two materials for filaments. From 1978 to 2013, OSRAM is a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens. In 2020, the company will be merged with ams to form ams OSRAM, bringing together technologies in the fields of light and sensor technology.
A visit to our website is worthwhile for more information about the history of Berlin:

Rifle Factory (1914 –1937)  BMW Motorcycle Plant (1939)
In the early 20th century, this gigantic munitions factory was central to the Prussian armaments industry. Production was top secret. Even now, hardly anything is known about it. Much more transparent are the fifty years in which BMW has been making motorcycles in the historic location. BMW bought the facility from Siemens & Halske in 1939, using it to build aircraft engines during WWII. For a brief period after the war, tools like sickles, scythes, and knives were made there. In 1949 BMW started manufacturing motorcycle parts, and in 1969 the first motorcycle totally built in Berlin rolled off the line. Today, 2,200 workers produce up to 800 motorcycles each day for the global market. A finished motorcycle rolls off the line about every 62 seconds.

Royal Fireworks Laboratory (1870 –1918)
Fireworks and Film Magic – Fireworks for entertainment played only a minor role. Incendiary, explosive, and signal rockets for the military were developed, tested, and produced here. It all began in 1817 with a laboratory for incendiary rockets at the Spandau Citadel. When it grew too small, the laboratory moved to Eiswerder Island. As a remote location surrounded by water, it was ideal for producing explosives under the utmost secrecy. The Fireworks Laboratory achieved rapid breakthroughs, contributing decisively to the Prussian army’s potency. The remaining factory buildings were built between 1870 and 1918. From the end of WWI to the end of the Cold War they were used for storage, in part for the Berlin Senate Reserve. Some of the historic buildings are currently being converted to apartments. Others contain workshops and the offices of the German Stunt Association.

Siemens Headquarters (1910–1930)
In the early 20th century, Siemens reluctantly moved its headquarters away from the company’s original location [Site 3on Route 1] near the government district. The independent city of Spandau had been very keen to become the new home for the main office of such an important generator of business tax revenue, and Siemens eventually agreed. The company erected a building in the center of Siemensstadt that was bigger than every city hall in Berlin. Offices for 5,000 employees lined its five kilometers of hallways. During WWI parts of the structure served as a hospital. Featuring a mosaic hall, a lecture hall, and a library, the building represented a shift in Siemens’s architecture. The facade was designed by Karl Janisch in Historicist style; the interiors were the work of Hans Hertlein. The Siemens Historical Institute has been located there since 2016. An underground tunnel links the building with the Dynamo Works on the other side of the street. Dynamos are still manufactured there – an invention once pioneered by Werner von Siemens.

Siemensstadt Housing Development (1921–1930)
Escape from the Urban Jungle – The housing shortage after WWI was massive. In order to provide its workers with a place to live, Siemens founded its own property company. This and all subsequent Siemens housing developments were built as an escape from the dreariness of the tenements. Company architect Hans Hertlein built apartments and townhouses for white-collar workers. For the standards of the time they were pure luxury, with a bathroom in every apartment. Heating, lighting, and ventilation were also state of the art. Hertlein was influenced by the garden city movement and Reform architecture, as can also be seen in his design of the open spaces. Of note: the development’s streets and squares are named after engineers, inventors, and physicists whose work paved the way for Siemens’s success.

Siemensstadt Housing Estate (1929–1934)
UNESCO World Heritage Site – A decade before WWII, Berlin city planner Martin Wagner commissioned six architects with six distinctive styles to realize their vision of modernist urban planning: Gropius, Scharoun, Bartning, Forbát, Häring, and Henning. Four of these architects belonged to the innovative Ring association; hence the nickname Ring Settlement. The tiny apartments were intended for Siemens workers with low incomes. Light, fresh air, and sunshine were the credo by which the Settlement was built. The most famous buildings are Bartning’s monotonous Langer Jammer (Long Misery) and Scharoun’s Panzerkreuzer (Armored Cruiser). Information boards around the Settlement provide details about the buildings and their architects.

Spandau Citadel
Center of the Prussian Armaments Industry – A cannon foundry, factories for rifles, munitions, and gunpowder, and a fireworks laboratory – all these still bear witness to how the fortress city of Spandau began developing into the center of the Prussian armaments industry in the 18th century. The Citadel played an important military and representative function. The Citadel’s armory is now home to museums devoted to Spandau’s cultural, civic, industrial, and military history. The courtyard provides space for music festivals, theater, and Renaissance fairs.

Wernerwerk High-Rise / Wernerwerk X (1930)
Siemens was constantly expanding and building new buildings. To prevent confusion, in the 1920s Siemens began naming and numbering them as Wernerwerke (Werner’s Factories), after company founder Werner von Siemens. The architect of Wernerwerk was Hans Hertlein. His sober, functional steel-frame buildings set a new standard and were the face of the distinctive Siemens style. This high-rise building once contained the Siemens & Halske offices, a library, and, on the tenth floor, a lecture hall. To highlight the importance of this cutting-edge building and the revolutionary potential of electricity, on special occasions all of the windows were illuminated. The building is now home to several companies, and the tenth floor is a conference center.

Wernerwerk II and Clock Tower (1914 –1929)
Symbol of Siemensstadt – The clock tower is 70 meters high and stands in the middle of what was once a meter factory consisting of seven blocks with inner courtyards. The tower encases a smokestack and a water tower. The water was used in the factory to test liquid meters. The factory was built by Karl Janisch and expanded by Hans Hertlein. It is now part of the Thelen Technopark.

“Belgienhalle” (1918)
Large-Scale Spoils of War – There was an acute iron shortage during WWI. To help cpanies of significance to the war effort, industrial buildings in occupied territories were dismantled and rebuilt in Germany. For the Siemens-Schuckert Works, architect Hans Hertlein chose an iron-frame hall in the northern French city of Valenciennes, near the Belgian border. The relocated building, deceptively named Belgienhalle, or “Belgium Hall,” became a metal shop at the Siemens Cable Factory on Gartenfeld Island. Its location on the Hohenzollern Canal made it accessible to barges. Workers took the Siemensbahn, or “Siemens Railway,” to Gartenfeld Station. The hall was expanded in 1928/29. Electric, communications, and high-frequency cables were produced there until 2002. Then it was used as a storage facility and briefly as the location for the Bread & Butter tradeshow. 3,700 apartments and a recreational waterfront are planned for the island, which will be closed to traffic. The landmarked hall will be home to commercial, social, and cultural enterprises.