# BREMEN | Area of the former "Sparkasse" | U/C ‎



## Heinzer (Mar 17, 2014)

The municipal bank "Bremer Sparkasse" is moving its headquarters out of the city towards the University district. Thus, 11,000 sq meters of prime location in the city centre are now free to be developed. There is a listed building forming the corner of the square "Am Brill" which is not to be altered but has to be integrated into the new concept including an old bank hall which is supposed to be a very well preserved gem of early 20th century finance architecture.

The area has been sold to the brothers Schapira two Israel based real estate investors who have signed up none other than Daniel Libeskind for the conversion/urban planning.

These are the preliminary results:



















This is the new foyer of the area which is supposed to be of mixed use with residential in the towers, two hotels and of course offices and restaurants:










While this is doubtlessly something "big" by Bremen standards, I am not wholly convinced of the quality of the plans... what do you think?


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## droneriot (Apr 1, 2008)

Looks like they had five different ideas for the design and instead of picking one they decided to throw them all together.

-edit- Just want to clarify that the negativity of this post is only about the "design". I used to drink coffee at the Starbucks on the other side of the street, and despite its proximity to the center and the Am Brill station, that area always seemed pretty dead and crummy, and I wouldn't mind a project that would bring a bit more life to it.


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## keepthepast (Oct 23, 2009)

I agree with droneriot...looks like hodge-podge.

but then, it's Libeskind. What else can one expect other than inappropriateness and incongruity. 

_Quote from heinzer: "There is a listed building forming the corner of the square "Am Brill" which is not to be altered but has to be integrated into the new concept..."_

The city wants the bank "integrated" into the new concept? This is actually laughable. It's there, but it's about as integrated as a piece of asphalt pebble stuck into QEII's favorite tiara.


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## wakka12 (May 17, 2015)

Yeh integrated seems to just mean not demolish it


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## Heinzer (Mar 17, 2014)

Yeah, I'm also skeptical, it's just your typical modernist development, completely autistic concerning its surroundings.


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## droneriot (Apr 1, 2008)

I just realised I confused Am Brill with Domsheide again and it's not the location I had in mind. I thought it was the block on the opposite side of Starbucks near the Domsheide station because I keep confusing the two. I need to change my view of the design then because that block actually already is a strange mishmash of styles.

But I was rarely ever there in person. There's a Chinese restaurant nearby I went with friends three times, and other friends like the Meisenfrei bar but I never went.


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## keepthepast (Oct 23, 2009)

Well, making more mish-mash out of existing mish-mash isn't a very good strategy in my view. Mish-mash squared is still mish-mash.

I have been to this block and know the area, so my points remain the same. Another missed opportunity for a large, very visible development area that could have been a highlight for Bremen.


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## Bremennorder (Oct 4, 2017)

This is how „Am Brill“ looks like today:

Seen from above:
https://www.google.de/maps/@53.078055,8.8005632,93a,35y,3.47h,63.97t/data=!3m1!1e3

… and from street level:
https://www.google.de/maps/@53.0786...4!1sRRWPpLPLtdk3Ls_PlCy23w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Except for the corner building thats's not a situation I would like to keep, but I also completely I agree with these words:


keepthepast said:


> Well, making more mish-mash out of existing mish-mash isn't a very good strategy in my view. Mish-mash squared is still mish-mash.
> I have been to this block and know the area, so my points remain the same. Another missed opportunity for a large, very visible development area that could have been a highlight for Bremen.


Libeskind’s plan – if you like the design or not (and I overall don't really like it  ) - misses the chance to develop the area in a way that pays tribute to the old town the area historically is part of. The main positive thing I see on the other hand is that this project could help Bremen get away from its reputation of being a boring village nobody wants to live in.


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## wakka12 (May 17, 2015)

Bremen definitely needs some new contemporary buildings, it looks like the city centre has not changed much since the post war reconstruction , or at least the majority of the buildings in the centre look to be 40 or more years old


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## droneriot (Apr 1, 2008)

Bremennorder said:


> The main positive thing I see on the other hand is that this project could help Bremen get away from its reputation of being a boring village nobody wants to live in.


I think nobody wants to live in Bremen because of the humongous ghetto population.


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

Bremen is no ghetto. Fantastic project for beautiful city.


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## droneriot (Apr 1, 2008)

Ride line 1 to the East, it's an endless ocean of social housing blocks - Vahr, Blockdiek, Tenever, etc. So is most of Huchting and most of Bremen-Nord. Not to mention the proximity of Delmenhorst. It's not something visitors see because the good-looking older parts of Bremen cover a huge area around the center with Ostertor, Steintor, Neustadt, Schwachhausen etc all nice, but unfortunately the population from the outer areas spills into the central areas to spend their Hartz IV on drugs, alcohol and things to litter all streets and parks with.


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## Heinzer (Mar 17, 2014)

Bremen's "problem", if you will, lies in the fact that it grew like no other city in Germany in the first two post war decades so that much of its outskirts are dominated by post war architecture. Of the 15 biggest cities in Germany, Bremen was by far the smallest in 1937 whereas many others, including Berlin, Hamburg and Leipzig have still not reached their prewar peaks.

This means that naturally, Bremen's city structure is that of a city with perhaps 250,000-300,000 people stretched out along the Weser River which of course leads to the rather small prewar built up area and the relative dominance of post war housing surrounding it. These areas, by the way, consist of way more than drug abusers on the dole living in social housing, on the contrary, Bremen has the highest percentage of home owners of all German cities of more than 500,000 inhabitants by far.

So, once more, a rather polemic, not very constructive comment of yours. There's no problem in you not liking Bremen (by God, you're not alone in that ) but there should at least be a minimum of truth in your posts. I gather from your other posts that the last time you were here was almost 20 years ago. Maybe you should come and see for yourself ...


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## droneriot (Apr 1, 2008)

I lived in Bremen for about one and a half years, about five months in Neustadt (amazing area) in 2004, about nine months in Huchting (horrible area) in 2005 and about two months in the Blockdiek area (blearggh) in 2011. Last time I was there was last year, visiting a friend in Hastedt, another awkward neglected looking area. Maybe it's just my impression, but it seems like every time one leaves the areas prettied up for tourists, one is stepping into something that's like Delmenhorst on steroids.


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## Heinzer (Mar 17, 2014)

The dominance of these sad postwar areas (fully agree there) again lies in the enormous growth of Bremen in an architecturally problematic era. It grew by almost 250,000 people in just 2 decades, plus about half of the existing housing was at least partly destroyed, so there was a huge demand for a "quick fix" leading to the results that can be seen in the parts of Bremen you mentioned.

It is surprising though that even these areas are very mixed and full of privately owned housing and even rather proud inhabitants. Although I agree that the general atmosphere there is rather sad, these are by no way "ghettos" apart from maybe a few really bad early seventies developments like Tenever or the infamous "Grohner Düne" in Bremen Nord. In fact, I know a lot of completely normal, homeowning people from places like Osterholz or Huchting although again I agree on the general deficits of these post war town extensions.

Hastedt is now developing quite nicely, at least in its western parts bordering on the Östliche Vorstadt. But it is true that a lot of the less central areas of Bremen have this somewhat neglected feel, the streets are in bad shape, there is a lot of litter flying around and you have the omnipresent problem of really bad "homemade" renovations to the small and formerly rather cute Bremen houses in areas like Hastedt… lots of grey tiles or fake clinker/cladding on old houses, horizontalised windows, concrete front yards etc. 

So again, there is lots to critisize rightly about Bremen, it's just that in your case, its presentation sometimes seems rather undifferentiated and polemic.


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