Berlin: Mommsenstadium

1930

Architect: Fred Forbát

Waldschulallee 42-43, Berlin, Germany

Background

In 1930, Fred Forbát, a former employee of Walter Gropius at the Bauhaus in Weimar, designed a sports stadium for the Charlottenburg Sports Club.

Located in the Westend district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf on the edge of the Eichkamp housing development, the stadium was intended to be a model of urban planning.

The stadium was inaugurated on August 17, 1930, and was initially called the SCC Stadium because members of the Charlottenburg Sports Club participated in its construction.

However, building a new stadium in the midst of the Great Depression plunged the club into an economic crisis, especially since many of its members were unemployed and unable to pay their membership fees at the beginning of the 1930s.

Waldschule

Lotte Kaliski learned of the club’s plight and was looking for rooms to found a forest school (Waldschule).

At the turn of 1931/1932, she reached an agreement with the club’s management to rent rooms for the school during the day. Beyond that, the rooms would continue to be used for the club’s purposes.

On April 7, 1932, under these conditions, the Waldschulheim Eichkamp began its work with 26 students. It later became the Private Waldschule Kaliski.

The seizure of power by the National Socialists severely tested the operation of the school. At the end of October 1933, the Kaliski Private Forest School’s lease was terminated.

In 1934, the Theodor Mommsen Gymnasium, a forerunner of today’s Heinz Berggruen Gymnasium, which had previously been homeless and scattered among various locations, moved into the stadium’s tribune wing.

The principal turned the school into a model National Socialist institution and used the grandstand building until the start of World War II. Mommsen Stadium got its current name from the Gymnasium.

Mommsenstadium

It is the home stadium of both SC Charlottenburg and Tennis Borussia, the latter of which has called it home since the end of World War II.

Upon completion, the stadium had 1,750 seats and space for 36,000 people to stand.

The grandstand roof’s steel skeleton structure stands on a three-story substructure that houses locker rooms, recreation rooms, and a restaurant.

The 104-meter-long, three-story grandstand building’s façade is articulated by two semi-circular, two-story, glazed stairwells that project outward.

A somewhat wider hall wing, used as a gymnasium, is located in the northern part of the building.