The first Berlin underground station with a shopping mall.
Description
The stations's core are the platform and the steal construction, holding the roof with skylights. Next to the tracks are parallel shopping malls, leading via a ramp or steps to the entrances/exits. The shopping malls lead along the underground's tracks, a metal-fence seperates the two zones. This underground station was built within houses not having an own underground pavilion.
The lettering of the former cinema Onkel-Tom-Kino is replaced by the lettering Ladenstrasse, showing the way to the shopping males.
History
This underground station was built in 1929 and opened on December 22, 1929. It is planned as the central station for the housing estate Onkel Toms Hütte. The construction was done by the main architect of the Berlin underground system Alfred Grenander. What makes this station special is, that the architects Otto Salvisberg and Rudolf W. Reichel added a shopping mall on both sides of the station from 1931-1932. To combine a traffic facility with a shopping mall was realized with this building for the first time. The idea of a modern city is shown with this architecture and its functions. Traffic, shopping and living. At the entrance along Onkel-Tom-Straße even culture became a place at the station. Until 1968 the cinema Onkel-Tom-Kino attracted people to come here. It was changed to a grocery shop with the lettering Ladenstrasse, meaning shopping mall.
In 2020 parts of the station's roof catched a fire.
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