for separating the station ditch. The southern ditch in the foreground has already been pumped out.
The site of the future delivery yard under today's Marlene-Dietrich-Platz.
After the underwater concrete foundation was cast, the so-called 'draining' could take place – the pumping out of the trough began. Two weeks later, the pit was empty and the building could be erected.
The listed Haus Huth and Lindenstraße at some points in time stood on cliffs above the building pits. Directly beside the building, depths went down to 20 m. The building was protected by impounded beams to stop it slipping.
In 1996, the Haus Huth could be seen on the beam wall.
DIVERS ON POTSDAMER PLATZ
Was one of the most popular subjects for reporting during the building phase. They prepared the bed of the lake for concreting at a depth of 23 m. Two hours and a change of shift were necessary because otherwise the health risk would have been too great. In the cold winter of 1996/1997, 80 divers were working at an average outdoor temperature of –15°C.
The ball-shaped cupola of today's BLUEMAX Theatre was designed according to the principle of the airdome, a demanding, but efficient technique. The sphere with a diameter of 35 m, the later auditorium, was first blown up as a huge plastic balloon. It was then sprayed with 30 cm of concrete and the plastic skin was removed.
The ceramic plates were then mounted on the BLUEMAX cupola in a special way.
During the construction, the surface of the moon was projected onto the cupola of the BLUEMAX Theatre.
In construction section B, the water was pumped away in 1996. The tops of the 20 m long injected stilts firmly fixed in the ground are burnt off.
FROM MASTER PLAN TO MASTERPIECE
Europe's largest construction site as a challenge for logistics
For the total Daimler area, as it was called at the time, a total construction period of only 4 years was planned. And so, of course, the cost framework had to be observed and the high quality standards fulfilled. To be able to navigate the organisation of such a massive project, debis Immobilienmanagement GmbH (dIM, the tax company of the investors) developed a concept of sub-projects together with Drees & Sommer AG, their General Manager, and thus embarked on new paths: the area was divided into four construction sections (A, B, C and D). Each section received its own 'overall construction management', which as owner-builders cooperated hand in hand with the contracted companies.
Another challenge was then to take account of the traffic constructions to be erected by dIM which were commissioned by third parties when planning their 19 own buildings. The tunnel sections of the B 96 highway and the underground line 3 were built for the Berlin government; the regional railway station was constructed directly below Potsdamer Platz and was commissioned by Deutsche Bahn AG.
