Shell-Haus

Shell-Haus is a modernist architectural masterwork that stands overlooking the Landwehrkanal in the Tiergarten district of Berlin.

In 1929 a competition was held between five architects to determine the designer of a prestigious new office block to house the headquarters of the mineral oil company, and Shell subsidiary, Rhenania-Ossag. The victor was the German architect and professor Emil Fahrenkamp (1885-1966). After almost two years in construction, Shell-Haus opened in 1932. At the time the building was noted for its modernist design, for its striking wave-like façade, and for being one of the first steel-framed high-rise buildings in Berlin. In retrospect it is regarded as Fahrenkamp’s masterpiece and one of the most significant office block designs of the Weimar Republic. Shell-Haus’ simplistic graceful forms are stylistically reminiscent of the German modern realist movement New Objectivity, but Fahrenkamp also incorporated more traditional aspects to his design. The most eye-catching feature of Shell-Haus is its main façade, which jumps forward in six gentle waves whilst at the same time increasing in height from six levels (five at the back) to ten. The building itself comprises four wings situated around a four-sided inner courtyard.

During the Second World War Shell-Haus was used by the naval high command and the cellars were converted into a makeshift hospital. Despite the upper floors being damaged in the Battle of Berlin at the close of the war, Shell-Haus was one of Berlin’s few great edifices to survive the widespread destruction of the city relatively unscathed. After clearing away the war damage, in 1946 the Berlin electricity board BEWAG made Shell-Haus its head office. In 1958 Shell-Haus was put under the protection of historical monuments. However this acknowledgement of its architectural importance did not save the building from its post-war dilapidation, and it remained in a degraded state for many years to follow. Between 1965 and 1967, the Shell-Haus site was extended northwards with the construction of two similarly steel-framed buildings designed by the German architect Paul Baumgarten. Being comparatively conventional and unremarkable in design, they were not included under the original building’s historical monument protection and an 1995 application to rectify this was quashed.

When in the 1980s, talk turned to the long overdue restoration of Shell-Haus a dispute over the funds needed ensued and continued into the mid-1990s. Renovation work was carried out on the courtyard façade in the early eighties but this failed to meet the required standards. In 1995 Bewag moved out of Shell-Haus in readiness for the overdue renovation project. And so in 1997, after 13 years of unrest, the restoration work began. At the time the total costs were estimated at around 50 million deutschmarks. but by the time work was completed in February 2000, the expenditure had escalated to around 80 million marks. A major contributory factor to this was the need to reopen the quarry Longarina of the company CIMEP in Tivoli near Rome in order to supply the travertine rock for the building façade. The pain-staking detail and expenditure vested in Shell-Haus did not go unrewarded - the year 2000 saw the renovation work awarded the monument preservation prize, the Ferdinand-von-Quast medal. In March 2000, the new owner of Shell-Haus, the Berlin energy supplier GASAG, moved in. Shell-Haus has several high profile fans including the acclaimed German film director Wim Wenders – who featured the building in his 1970 debut Summer in the City - and the architect Meinhard von Gerkan, who said that for him it was the most beautiful building in Berlin.