10
Berlin!!
The elevated railway with its cast-iron pillars painted green at the intersection of Eberswalder Strasse – that’s Berlin! In a way, that’s probably right: the prior construction phase and the tunneling under the River Spree were too much of a financial responsibility. Which is why the trains emerge from the ground at what is today the Kulturbrauerei and then are lead across a viaduct for 1.7 kilometers.
The first viaducts and train stations in the west of the city were completed more than 100 years ago. For this, however, the initiators were not showered with praise for their pioneering engineering achievement, but with severe criticism. The citizens regarded the appearance of the functional buildings as a disgrace and cared little about cast iron. Compared to stone, it just seemed inferior to them. In their resentment some went as far as to demand the immediate demolition of the sections that had just been completed. In order to appease them, Siemens sought to cooperate with renowned architects for the remaining sections; their task was to develop a more visually pleasing, elegant appearance for viaducts and train stations. The existing stations were subsequently garnished with decorative elements.
Compared to the Jugendstil atmosphere of the station Bülowstrasse, which was built in 1902, the almost identical stations Eberswalder Strasse and Schönhauser Allee, which opened in 1913, have a plain and sober appeal. In the course of only a few years the zeitgeist had changed and a matter-of-fact, unadorned functionalism had become the style of choice.