588 AEYDE HAUS
Originally conceived as a residential and children’s department store, the Haus des Kindes, located on the former Stalinallee, is today a listed residential and office building in the Socialist Classicist style of the 1950s. The high-rise building is situated directly on Strausberger Platz, just behind Alexanderplatz, in a prominent central location. Designed by Hermann Henselmann, it was intended not only as a department store but also as a symbol of the socialist ideals of the young GDR state. This striking building played a significant role in the history of Karl-Marx-Allee and stands as a gem of early socialist architecture.
Until 2023, alongside extensively renovated apartments from the third floor upwards, the ground floor housed a furniture store and a dance school. The architectural brief for the architects Gonzalez Haase AAS was to create a cross-floor “Aeyde House”, a distinct unit spread across three floors, comprising an atelier, meeting rooms, showroom, lounge, magazine library, reception, archive, and spacious work areas. This unit occupies the entire ground floor, including an annex, a mezzanine level, and connects to the first floor of the 13-story building.
Constructed in 1953 as a prefabricated structure using precast reinforced concrete elements, the space was redesigned according to a radical concept by Gonzalez Haase. The ground floor spaces were completely gutted back to the structural skeleton, exposing the concrete prefabricated elements. The former south-facing façade of the ground floor, once part of the dance studio, was entirely removed, creating a unified space by merging the former dance studio annex with the previous furniture store.
Uncovering the nearly five meters high ceilings creates a striking spatial experience upon entering the showroom, with a floating staircase leading to the open mezzanine level. The volumes and spatial structures are made tangible, merging seamlessly in their full depth, width, and height to form a cohesive whole. This design allows natural light from all four cardinal directions to penetrate deep into the space. Artificial lighting enhances this concept: two parallel LED light strips (one warm, one cool) run the entire length of the space in visible aluminum profiles. Translucent room dividers made of full-height ribbed Plexiglas panels, wall-high mirrors, and aluminum cladding all share the same 60 cm width. This consistent architectural grid recurs throughout the design, appearing in different materials and levels of light transmission. The materials used either absorb or reflect space and light. Mirrors placed along visual axes throughout the interlocking spaces reflect the room’s full depth, doubling its perceived volume.
The material choices are either reflective, mirrored, or extremely matte. The reception desk and showroom kitchen are made of grey-pigmented rammed concrete, cast on-site. Their surfaces are rough, matte, and tactile, contrasting with the smooth, light- reflecting walls. The materials and color scheme are aligned to a warm, monochromatic grey spectrum: silver mirrors, light grey aluminum-clad walls, light grey curtains, whitewashed pine furnishings in the showroom, grey work desks and chairs, and grey concrete in the reception and showroom kitchen form a unified color palette. The materials themselves generate the light grey coloration, giving the Aeyde House a consistent, monochromatic tone across all levels.
