Development area Rummelsburger Bucht A chapter of urban and open space planning development in post-reunification Berlin

The astonishing urban and open space planning development of the areas around Rummelsburger See on both the Lichtenberg and Stralau sides is best described chronologically, with the focus of the chronology on the Rummelsburg side.

1945-1989
Until the fall of communism in 1989, the areas around Rummelsburg Lake on the Lichtenberg and Stralau sides were largely inaccessible to the population. The prison Rummelsburg as a place of coercion and tribulation in four political systems (Empire, Weimar Republic, Nazi period and GDR) was spear territory.

1992
Berlin applied for the Olympic Games in 2000. The Rummelsburger Bay was because of the very favorable traffic development (railway junction Ostkreuz) as a residential location for the participants in the Olympic Games chosen, after the Games should be housing for about 20,000 people. The growth forecasts of the time seemed to justify this housing requirement.

In an international, urban-open space planning expert review process, which covered the Lichtenberg side of Lake Rummelsburg and the Stralau peninsula in the Friedrichshain district, the proposals of the Herman Hertzberger and Atelier Loidl consortiums for the Stralau area and of Prof. Klaus Theo Brenner and Karl Thomanek for the Rummelsburg side emerged as the favorites.

The design by Brenner / Thomanek envisaged individual, densely built-up quarters with their own urban identity (meandering, open and closed blocks), which were embedded in the landscape and had a direct relationship to the water. To the west of the S-Bahn, the Rummelsburger See, which is an old arm of the Spree, continued as a landscape space in the form of a city park, flanked on the northern side by a high meander of buildings. The existing buildings of the Rummelsburg prison were to be put to public use. Coming from the Ostkreuz train station, an urban river promenade led along the multi-storey residential buildings into the landscaped riverbank areas to the east. The equivalence of urban development and landscape space was constitutive for the design. The term 'urban landscape', coined by Klaus Theo Brenner, sums up the programme of the design.

1994
Following the miserable failure of the Olympic bid in autumn 1993, the urban development agency responsible for Rummelsburg Bay had the urban density changed in a master plan in 1994. The quarters embedded in the landscape were modified in favour of blocks open to the water, the so-called courtyard gardens. The courtyard gardens comprised the communal open spaces of the residents in each block.

At the same time, as one of the first construction projects in the city, a stormwater management system was developed with roadside swales that collected surface water.

A shoreline trail led far to the east along a protected shoreline with dense floodplain forest vegetation and a reed belt created with the extensive cleanup of the heavily polluted waters of Lake Rummelsburg.

2007
The unfavorable forecasts for the population development of Berlin after the turn of the millennium led to a change in the construction program. While maintaining the urban figure as much as possible, the blocks were parceled out in favor of private development instead of multi-story housing. This attractive model with townhouses and gardens was enthusiastically received by private investors, so that the area developed into its present form within a few years. Considerations of putting the Rummelsburg prison buildings to public use were abandoned in favour of apartments.

2017
Rummelsburg Bay has established itself as a special residential quarter with high locational appeal. It is determined by above-average architecture and the self-evident inclusion of old building fabric with the former orphanages and cell wings of the prison converted into apartments. The area has a homogeneous population structure of the upper middle class, while the public open spaces on the waterfront such as the promenade, the lakeside path, the jetty and the viewing platform are heavily frequented by the entire population of Lichtenberg and beyond.

It is striking how people treat the open space with care and composure. This is due on the one hand to the dedicated residents, but also to the numerous visitors who treat the facilities attentively and want them to be preserved for their recreation.

Sitting on the shores of the lake on warm summer evenings, seeing the expanse of water with the silhouette on Stralau in front of you and watching the sun set, is one of the special things about Rummelsburg Bay. To be in the city and at the same time somewhere else is what distinguishes this place. Where is this again in Berlin?

However, in conclusion, the question must be allowed as to whether today, in view of the search for building sites close to the city with optimal transport connections for a rapidly and steadily growing population, the idea formulated in the master plan of high-quality multi-storey residential construction in the sense of the 'Hofgarten' building type would not have been the right decision after all?