Can you see it?

This picture is just a pre-release render. It's unfinished, but I hope to upload it soon to the Warehouse.

Kottbusser Tor

Kottbusser Tor was one of the original city gates, part of the so-called Berliner Zollmauer; the road through the gate lead to the town of Cottbus (Brandenburg). Both the U-Bahnhof and the area where it stands are named after the gate. However, that location is not where the original U- Bhf. Kottbusser Tor once stood.

U1 train type A3, leaving Kottbusser Tor on its way to Görlitzer Bahnhof.

The first station opened on February 18, 1902 as part of the U1 line. It was located near the corner of Mariannenstraße and Skalitzer Straße, and, as you can see in the picture below, shared the same shape of the U-Bhf. Oranienstraße (now Görlizter Bahnhof) .


This Station was demolished in 1926 following the construction of the U8 line. The current station was built ca. 170m westwards, and is now a two level station - The U1 platform is located in the elevated structure, and the one serving U8 is below ground level.

View of underground platform for the U8 line.

I also invite you to visit this interesting site (not mine), which has information and pictures of old U-Bahn stations. The website is in German, but I'm sure you will be easily able to understand.

Für Berlin, und Deutschland

As a gift to the German people in their holiday, today October 3, I have uploaded two new models to the Warehouse.

The Wittenbergplatz U-Bahnhof is one of the oldest U-Bahn stations in Berlin, having opened in March 1902. Here is a photo showing the first entrance.

In 1913, this entrance was replaced with a large hall built by architect Alfred Grenander in the Art Nouveau style. In 1952, the London Transport Board donated a London-Underground-like sign to conmemorate the 50 anniversary of the U-Bahn system (you can see the roundel as the logo of the model in the Warehouse).

Located in Kreuzberg, U-Bahnhof Görlizer Bahnhof opened in February 1902 as "U-Bhf Oranienstraße".

In 1926 it was renamed after the nearby Görlitzer Bahnhof, a railway terminus serving the mainline link connecting Berlin to Cottbus (Brandenburg), Görlitz (Saxony), Breslau (Silesia), and Vienna (Austria). The terminus was damaged in WW2 and demolished in the 1960s; however, the U-Bahnhof is preserved almost in its original condition.

Charlottenhof.

Today I have uploaded to the Warehouse another model located on Sanssouci Park: Schloss Charlottenhof.

Charlottenhof was built between 1826 and 1829 by Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel with the help of his student Ludwig Persius, by order of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (later Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, "the Romantic in the Throne"); the Kronprinz had created some designs for the project. The Palace is located on the site of a former farm house, and was built as a neoclassical villa for the Crown Prince, who used it as his summer residence.

View in Google Earth

The furniture inside the palace was largely designed by Schinkel himself. The most dinstictive room is fashioned after a Roman Caesar's tent, decorated with blue and white patterns.

Stained glass in Charlottenhof - detail

The Palace is maintained by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg.

Well, this post is a request to the Berliners (and maybe a clue for what I'm doing now). I need a clear picture of the façade of the Hotel Esplanade in Bellevuestraße (the preserved one, behind the glass), with reflection as least as possible. Could someone please take some photos? You may upload the images to your favorite host-site (Imageshack, Photobucket, Flickr, etc) and post the link here as a comment. Thank you.

Coming surprise

You may want to know why I have not uploaded more models to the Warehouse recently. Well, I'm a little busy this last month. I have a surprise, but, I must say, you have to wait.

PD. Does anyone has a photo showing the entire Alte Postdamer Strasse façade of the Weinhaus Rheingold?

And finally, I found it.

I still had the picture of the Justizpalast on my mind. I wanted to do it.

I was searching in the web, and decided to look at an article about one of the search results, "JVA Moabit". I got the coordinates and went to Google Earth. I saw this:
And, using archive from 1943/45 and then 1953.

In the first picture, Justizpalast would have been located in the lower right, southeast from the star-shaped building. The facility in the upper left is the Kriminalgericht Moabit, built between 1902 and 1906. In the second, you can see the Justizpalast as seen from a US aircraft in 1943/45 (the pictures are combined in the 1945 archive), before the respective bombings, and 1953. Although the quality in the 1943 photo is not good, you can notice both the Justizpalast and the star-shaped facility. In the picture from 1945 (upper right), you can see a slighty bomb-damaged building.
In the 1953 photograph, you can see the empty space where the Justizpalast once stood. The star-shaped building survived both bombings.
I must say that the 3d building size may not be accurate, however, I have tried to keep the building in the right proportions.

Königsberg Castle

Place of coronation of two Prussian Kings (Frederick I as King in Prussia and Wilhelm I, future German Emperor), by 1861 the Königsberg Castle was more than the walls and towers of the once Teutonic fortress. When Wilhelm I was coronated, the castle had incorporated the old defensive walls dating back from the Teutonic period (15th century), the Brick Gothic church (Schlosskirche) from 1594, the "Blood Court" (Blutgericht), a wine cellar built in the late 14th century, and some recent structures from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Konigsberg Castle: Brick gothic church and tower (middle), Blutgericht (right)

The Haberturm was the oldest tower (built ca. 1255) of the castle. It was the northeastern tower of the Schloss and a distinctive part of it, being visible from the other bank of the Schlossteich (Castle pond).

The castle contained also the Prussian Collection, with exhibits from the Prussian State Library and many art works.

All of this burnt down after the savage attack carried out by RAF in August 1944 - more than 800 airplanes bombed the city centre. Minor bombings by the Soviet air force, and later the Battle of Königsberg further damaged the castle. After the war, the Altstadt was no more than some destroyed buildings, the Königsberger Schloss and the shell of the Cathedral.

Königsberger Dom (Cathedral) as seen from the ruined Castle, 1949.

Despite all, the Castle walls remained standing. The end definetely came in 1968, when USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev decided to delete any sign of German past. The Schloss survived the first blast, - as a last showing of defiance to the Reds - that only torn down the brick gothic tower. A second explosion erased from Earth the remaining parts of this jewel (called "a symbol of Prussian fascism" by the Soviets, as other palaces like the Stadtschlösser in Berlin and Potsdam. The same they said, the same they did).

I have tried to make it the most accurate as possible, using a ground plan of the castle. The geometry work was the easy part - texturizing it was the difficult one. Although I could find many photos of the east, south and western parts, and three photocromes (Südseite, Ostseite and courtyard), I did not found pre-war photos of the northern side, for them I reviewed pictures displaying the ruined building.

Hope you like it.

The 'Mosque' on the Havelbucht

Until the early 1840s, the fountains on Sanssouci Park couldn't receive water from the reservoir Frederick II designated for them. In 1942 an engine built by businessman August Borsig (the original owner of the Palais Borsig in Berlin) was used to rise the water on the Great Fountain to a height of ca. 38 m. The then Prussian King, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, ordered the construction of this pumping station. Built by architect Ludwig Persius, the "Pumpenhaus" was designed with the shape of a Turquish mosque.

Two days ago Google uploaded this video showing Stuttgart and Berlin, the capital cities of Baden-Würtenberg and Berlin/Germany respectively, in 3D. There you can see some of my models, like the Staatsoper, St. Hedwig's, the Kanzleramt, Zeughaus, Gendarmenmarkt (excepting the French Cathedral), Soviet War Memorial in Tiergarten, etc. Along wih them, there are more very good models like the Reichstag, "Kommode" and Branderburger Tor by Emperor Heer, Kongresshale by Michael Riese, and JWagner's Tempelhof Airport.

Also, and although I personally dislike BM models, I must say that I have seen excellent online-modeled buildings. Some examples are the Hotel am Hauptbahnhof, the North Korean Embassy on Kaiserhofstrasse, Schinkel's Bauakademie and the Bahnhof am Alexanderplatz.