History KMA II

Between Strausberger Platz and Alexanderplatz, Stalinallee – called Karl-Marx-Allee from 1961 on – became the scene of a paradigm shift in the GDR building sector.

The avenue’s masonry-based architecture shifted from the National Traditions building style to industrialised construction in a modernist style.

The prefabricated housing, the glass pavilions and cinemas of KMA II aspire to lightness and transparency. For the first time in the GDR, volume prefabricated construction was trialled on a large scale on Karl-Marx-Allee. Industrialisation was to make construction in socialist Germany faster, cheaper and better.

1951

Constructa International Architecture Exhibition in Hanover on rebuilding Europe

1953–1954

Planning of the continuation of Stalinallee from Strausberger Platz to Alexanderplatz in the National Traditions building style (architects: Henselmann collective, Hopp, Paulick, Leucht, Hartmann, Souradny)

Early versions of development for Stalinallee between Alexanderplatz and Strausberger Platz

1953

Death of Joseph Stalin on 5 March; Popular Uprising in East Berlin and in the GDR on 17 June

Publication by N. S. Khrushchev: Besser, billiger und schneller bauen (Building Better, Cheaper and Faster), Berlin 1955

1955

German publication of Khrushchev’s speech on industrialised building, held at the 1954 All-Union Conference of Builders, Architects, and Workers and entitled ‘Building better, cheaper and faster’

Second trip to Moscow by architects from Berlin, headed up by Gerhard Kosel, to study industrialised building

1957

Interbau International Architecture Exhibition in the Hansaviertel district on rebuilding West Berlin in a modernist style

Exhibition catalogue of the Interbau Architecture Exhibition, Berlin 1957

1958

Hermann Henselmann’s overall design for the continuation of Stalinallee to Alexanderplatz is rejected

Implementation of the project by the Collein/Dutschke planning collective

Conceptual drawing of Stalinallee by Hermann Henselmann

View from Hotel Stadt Berlin to the new buildings on KMA II; the high-rises on Strausberger Platz can be seen in the background

1959

Cornerstone ceremony for the construction phase from Strausberger Platz to Alexanderplatz on 7 October, the 10th anniversary of the foundation of the GDR

1961

Demolition of the Stalin monument and renaming of Stalinallee to Karl-Marx-Allee on 13 November

Construction of the Berlin Wall from 13 August

Construction of the Berlin Wall at Brandenburg Gate

1962

Cuban Missile Crisis

1965–1973

Vietnam War

1968

Student protests in Western Europe and the USA; Prague Spring crushed by the Soviet Union

1969

Opening of Berlin’s TV Tower on Alexanderplatz

View along Karl-Marx-Allee towards Alexanderplatz