"Well, we are also anti-cyclical" [1]
The publishing house of Suhrkamp Verlag AG was completed in 2020. It is bordered by Torstraße (north), as well as Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße (west), Linienstraße and Zolastraße. It is located where the Poelzig-Block 2 once stood before it was destroyed in the Second World War, later the Kiosk and the Number One situated her but had to be demolished for the house.
Planning and development[]
In 2011, the Suhrkamp managing director Jonathan Landgrebe met the Hamburg lawyer Birgit Steenholdt-Schütt, whose IBAU AG managed the property. They quickly agreed on the place to become the location for the eventual headquarter of one of the most renowned german publishing houses as well as on architect Roger Bundschuh, who had already been responsible for the L40. No public announcement was made.[1]
The originally intended address was at Linienstraße 34. However, since the construction work on the front on Torstraße was finished, the District Office in Mitte assigned the address Torstraße 44. [2]
Just a connection (Torstraße 42)
In 2019 the Emil-Haus was nibbled on by the Suhrkamp publishing house through an uncanny encounter of the third kind. Since then, the two have been connected by a strange connection that is neither creative nor handsome, but simply there to establish a connection. That in turn is now Torstrasse 42.
Interior decoration[]
Books are not the subject of joint work here, but also an essential part of the interior design to promote the imagination. As room dividers, they ensure that the impression of an open-plan office is not created, even if this is exactly the case. Small retreats and communication islands invite you to dream, if you have the time. A “narrative staircase” leads over the floors and is flanked on one side by bookshelves, but of course this is only to be understood as a joke.
other institutions[]
The restaurant REMI has been on the ground floor since its completion in 2020 and could not have chosen a better time for its opening. In the bicycle shop VanMoof you can take a test ride on futuristic e-bikes. The interesting dress code of the employees, or rather, the “staff”, deserves a special notification. Next to that the McLaughlin Galerie is located. According to its owner of the same name its big windows are supposed to make passers-by curious. It is de facto a dependance of the Lechner Museum in Ingolstadt. Lechner was the adoptive father of McLaughlin.
An originally planned kiosk cannot be found. A public forecourt in the shape of a triangle is reminiscent of the previous planting of the old drinking park.