The history of Berlin
This record gathers one piece of ground in Berlin Mitte, Magazinstraße 6-7, where a royal army hay and forage depot gave way to a 1910-1911 office and commercial block, later a spinning mill, small workshops, a workers' clinic, and present-day offices.
Magazinstraße 6-7 in Berlin Mitte is a 1910-1911 office and commercial block, the Verwaltungsbau designed by A. Wollenberg and built by the UNION Baugesellschaft on ground once used as the royal army's hay and forage depot, later home to a spinning mill, small manufacturers, a workers' clinic, and now offices.
A merchants' office block rises and fills with tenants
The building went up between 1910 and 1911 as a Verwaltungsbau, an office and commercial block, designed by the entrepreneur and architect A. Wollenberg. The builder was the UNION Baugesellschaft, one of Berlin's major property firms. By 1914, barely three years after it opened, the Lindenau & Pinesohn spinning mill had bought the building and moved in as its first major tenant. Its facade still carries twelve carved plates showing putti and animals holding tools of trade, a sign to passersby that this was built as a workplace for merchants and craftspeople.
Cigar makers, hatters and tailors share the courtyards
Through the 1930s and 1940s, small manufacturers filled the floors. Carl Martienzen rolled cigars here, and Oppenheimer & Comper made neckties. Gebrüder Feig turned out hats, and Martha Luft ran a clothing workshop. The building worked the way its facade promised: a hive of small trades under one roof.
The building becomes a clinic for construction workers
Under East German rule, the building changed completely. It became the Zentrale Poliklinik der Berliner Bauarbeiter, a central health clinic for Berlin's construction workers, later run as a district polyclinic. The workshops gave way to waiting rooms and doctors' offices.
Fire damage is found and replaced with concrete
In 2009, the building was converted into offices for an international law firm, with new conference rooms, a library, and an employee canteen. In December 2020, the firm MOMENI bought the property from Signature Capital in a private deal covering about 14,000 square meters of floor space. Renovation since 2023 has uncovered fire damage buried in the structure. Floor plates and supports had been scorched and weakened, and engineers replaced them with reinforced concrete and a wood-concrete hybrid ceiling. The work is converting the block into offices and restaurant space, built around four planned courtyard gardens.
The old Verwaltungsbau stands mid-renovation on Magazinstraße, its carved trade emblems still on the facade above the scaffolding.
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