News
February 1912 – Siemens’ new cable factory begins operation in Berlin-Gartenfeld
Production at the new cable factory, 1912
The cable factory – planned by Carl Dihlmann and Karl Janisch – was the first structure at the Nonnendamm site that would later become Siemensstadt. Since there was no room for expansion at the old location, the two parent companies, Siemens & Halske and Siemens-Schuckertwerke, acquired the Gartenfeld estate on Lake Tegel near Saatwinkel in 1910. With an area of some 200 acres, the new site had considerable advantages over the previous location. The nearby Hohenzollern canal, which was built at the same time, provided an ideal transport link since it could be used by the large ships needed to carry heavy cables. There was also a convenient rail connection via the freight station at Ruhleben. Last but not least, manufacturing activities could – due to the size of the perfectly positioned location – now be expanded almost indefinitely.
Construction was rapid, and production commenced in February 1912. The spacious new building complex, which covered 80,000 square meters, housed facilities for producing electrical lines, wires and cables as well as a rubber factory and a variety of laboratories.
Karl Janisch, who was responsible for the factory project, had been Siemens’ in-house architect since 1902, with responsibility for all building and building technology matters throughout the company. A prolific industrial architect, Janisch designed most of the Siemensstadt buildings between 1899 and 1915. In all his projects, aesthetic elements were secondary to functionality, and production processes had obvious priority. Productivity and economic efficiency determined the cable factory’s design, which dispensed entirely with historicizing elements. Encasing manufacturing activities in a purpose-built shell, the building was in every sense a purely functional structure.
After expanding in the following years, the complex was damaged in World War II and subsequently rebuilt and converted to new uses. The demolition of old building parts began in the 1970s.
February 13, 2012 – Dr. Frank Wittendorfer
Further reading
Wolfgang Ribbe, Wolfgang Schäche, Die Siemensstadt. Geschichte und Architektur eines Industriestandortes, Berlin 1985 (in German only)