Wohnkomplex Blücherstrasse
The housing complex Böcklerpark in Berlin-Kreuzberg, designed by Gerd Hänska and Bodo Fleischer.
The housing complex is part of the 1970s urban regeneration plan, which included demolishing pre-war buildings and old urban structures, and constructing rows of high-rise blocks. The flats in this complex were intended to serve as temporary and replacement accommodation during the ongoing 'clear-cut regeneration'. Construction of the large housing estate at Böcklerpark took place between 1974 and 1978. The 13-storey building was designed with recesses and a choice of materials and colours in its central zone to visually echo the eaves height of the old buildings. The blocks to the south of Gitschiner Straße were designed as 3- to 5-unit buildings with shallow depths.
For the redevelopment area, Planning Unit VI, south of Wassertorplatz and the underground line, Kreuzberg South (SKS), an architectural competition was launched in 1969.
The acronym SKS stands for Sanierungsgebiet Kreuzberg Süd (Kreuzberg South Redevelopment Area). The planning team consisted of Klaus H. Ernst, Bodo Fleischer, Gerd Hänska, Herbert Stranz and Hans Wolff-Grohmann.
The five invited architects jointly developed planning concepts without competing against one another in a competition. In their 1969 statement of principles, they set out the following premises for the area: an overarching plan for the entire regeneration area, as the planning unit could not be viewed in isolation; the historically developed urban space with its streets and squares should be preserved; the planned motorway routes should be integrated into the urban fabric, and the ‘familiar Kreuzberg mix’ should be preserved.
Nevertheless, the architects' proposed masterplan envisaged a large-scale motorway scheme that would have destroyed Lenné’s green axis and broken up the block structure with its mix of uses. In order to implement the plans, 90% of the residential buildings would have had to be demolished to make way for 'residential strips', resulting in 23% fewer flats than existed previously in the planning unit.
