Project developer Herzberg 2019 (*): "We are doing some urban repairs here"
Photo: Jesco Denzel / DER SPIEGELTimo Herzberg has a vision of Berlin. The Germany boss of the Austrian real estate group Signa sees a metropolis, lively, diverse, dynamic and equipped with new high-rise buildings.
Herzberg thinks back to Berlin a hundred years ago, when the former royal seat had become a pulsating city. When everything seemed possible in art, literature, music, architecture. "The 1920s were Berlin's heyday," says the manager.
This is probably one of the reasons why some of what Herzberg is planning looks like it was designed in the Weimar Republic. A modern image of the Art Deco high-rise that stood there until 1945 is to be created on Hermannplatz, between the Kreuzberg and Neukölln districts. The almost 500 million euro investment is Herzberg's favorite project and a political issue.
Because not all Berliners share the businessman's enthusiasm. In the trendy district of Kreuzberg there is skepticism and rejection. Too pretentious, a foreign body in the multicultural neighborhood, so the verdict of residents. The Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district has already rejected the project.
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