Former Royal Railway Directorate Service Building (Berlin)

 office building, railway, listed building / architectural heritage, 1895_construction

Schöneberger Ufer 1
10785 Berlin
Germany

The former service building of the Royal Railway Directorate in Berlin was built from 1892 to 1895 as the seat of the authority of the same name, which is subordinate to the Prussian Ministry of Public Works, based on plans by the architect Armin Wegner. After the Prussian state railways were transferred to the Reichseisenbahn, later Deutsche Reichsbahn, on April 1, 1920, the historicist administration building in the forms of the German Neo-Renaissance, which was rather reserved for reasons of cost, served as the headquarters of the Reichsbahn division in Berlin. Today the Royal Directorate is owned by the real estate company Vivico.

The extraterritorial situation in West Berlin led to various incidents between the Soviet and American occupying powers and the West Berlin police in the post-war period, until the Deutsche Reichsbahn found a less conflictual use in 1958 with the use as a polyclinic for West Berlin Reichsbahn employees. After the general renovation from 1991 to 1995, an interlude as the headquarters of the Berlin branch of Deutsche Bahn until 2002 and a longer vacancy, the former office building was used from 2006-2017 as the headquarters of Bombardier Transportation, among other things.