Lehniner Square

Redesign of a square at Kurfürstendamm

A place of peace
The Lehniner Platz in Berlin

The Schaubühne in the Mendelsohn-Bau in Berlin always used the place name "Am Lehniner Platz", but where the square actually was, few knew until now. That has now changed. On an area on Kurfürstendamm on the opposite side of the Schaubühne, which previously served mainly as a parking lot, the square has been reborn as a public space.

The meeting of the street grid on the diagonally running boulevard has created several squares with a triangular basic shape in the course of the Kurfürstendamm, which are successively redesigned in line with the times as part of the "squares program" of the Senate Department of Berlin.

On June 14, Lehniner Platz was inaugurated. The design goes back to a workshop process with five landscape architecture firms in May 2010, which our office Häfner/Jimenéz had won.
The dominant element of the square is a seating element that, in addition to the axial reference to the tower building of the Schaubühne, also includes a water feature.

In a place where previously only cars were parked, a generous and open area forms the space as an urban stage. On the former Damaschkestraße in the back, a rather intimate lounge area was created on a yellow asphalt surface, where the Art Nouveau benches of the Kudamm set an unusual accent next to the classically modern lights from the building ensemble around the Schaubühne. A boules court is integrated as a playing field for the residents and on Saturdays a farmers' market continues to take place between the two rows of lime trees.

At a public citizens' meeting, the planning was discussed fiercely and controversially. The core of the conflict was, as so often, the reduction of parking spaces. Today, the square is a natural part of the urban fabric, refers to the architectural monument of classical modernism with the contemporary use Schaubühne on the other side of the boulevard and radiates not least with its peace and serenity in the adjacent streets.