Kant-Garage

Kant-Garage, also known as Kant-Garagen-Palast (Kant Parking Palace), is a historic multi-storey parking garage located at Kantstraße 126/127 in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. Opened in 1930, it is recognized as the first multi-level parking garage in Berlin and one of the few surviving examples of industrial Bauhaus architecture. The building holds the distinction of being the oldest surviving multi-storey garage in Europe with a double-helix ramp system and the only such structure in the world with a curtain wall facade. Registered as a historic monument in 1991, Kant-Garage has undergone significant changes in use since 2017, transitioning from continuous automotive service to commercial and cultural purposes. Its preservation remains contested, reflecting broader tensions between heritage conservation and urban development pressures in contemporary Berlin.

The garage was constructed between 1929 and 1930 by the architectural firm Lohmüller, Korschelt & Renker (Bruno Lohmüller, Oskar Korschelt, Jakob Renker) in collaboration with architects Hermann Zweigenthal (also known as Hermann Herrey) and Richard Paulick, and entrepreneur-engineer Louis Serlin. The 1.5 million Reichsmark project was financed through Serlin's securing of the German Automobile Club as principal tenant. The building originally connected at first-floor level to the adjacent Villa Schulze, built in 1895 by gardener Carl Schulze, which Serlin used for administrative purposes and which housed a chauffeurs' canteen operating as a public tavern. The garage attracted international attention immediately upon completion in October 1930, with guided tours offered during the 1932 International Building Exhibition, though the structure was not yet fully complete: the final roof storey was added only in 1936-1937 by Siemens-Bauunion. Until 1939, operations were managed by Garagenpalast Betriebs-Gesellschaft mbH under Ernst and Lilli Caspari, who fled to Uruguay in 1938 due to their Jewish heritage. The business was subsequently Aryanized by SS-Hauptsturmführer Gustav Lombard. Serlin himself fled to the United States around 1941, settling in Los Angeles after the war; in 1942, ownership was transferred to Günther Graf von der Schulenburg. The building survived World War II with minor damage, chiefly a direct hit by an explosive grenade in the roof storey and destruction of glazing by bomb splinters and pressure waves. The Villa Schulze was completely destroyed, while neighboring residential buildings suffered severe damage. Post-war, the property was returned to Serlin, whose company resumed garage and petrol station operations. War damage was repaired by approximately 1947. In 1948, the ground-floor curtain wall was removed and replaced with brickwork on orders of the Berlin criminal police. A Shell AG service and vehicle hall was built on the former Villa Schulze site in 1956. Karl Heinz Pepper acquired the building in September 1961; his family operated it for 55 years. In late 2016, Berlin real estate developer Dirk Gädeke purchased the monument, discontinuing garage and petrol station operations in early 2017. The petrol station, which had operated continuously since 1930, was decommissioned in May, June 2017. Since October 2017, the historic interior fittings have been dismantled with approval from heritage authorities. From 2022 to 2023, Stilwerk occupied the premises; since 2023, various tenants have moved in across nearly all floors.

Kant-Garage does not function as a conventional collecting institution. Its significance lies rather in its status as an architectural and technical monument preserving the material culture of interwar automotive infrastructure. Until 2017, the building retained what was described as the only nearly complete authentic equipment of any multi-storey garage in Germany, comprising original technical and spatial elements that documented the operational practices of early automotive service. These elements formed an integrated ensemble of industrial heritage rather than a curated collection in the traditional museum sense. The building's value as a preserved site of automotive architecture has been recognized by multiple professional bodies including the Berlin Academy of Arts, the Technical University of Berlin's postwar modernism working group, the Berlin Architects' Association, and the Bauhaus-Archiv.

The most significant preserved elements of Kant-Garage included its pioneering double-helix ramp system, the first of its kind in Germany and the oldest surviving example in Europe. The rear curtain wall facade was unique worldwide among multi-storey garages. Until their removal in 2017, the structure contained 132 original Heinrichs sliding garage doors, manufactured by the Berlin firm Paul Heinrichs, which were considered unique surviving examples of their type. Original fire-protection doors were also retained, designed to seal individual floors automatically in case of fire. Additional preserved technical equipment included 1930s-era washing bays and lubrication service lifting devices. The building's six-storey structure originally accommodated 300 parking spaces, 200 of which were designed as enclosed boxes with steel fire doors. The Kantstraße frontage was clad in grey-sand clinker bricks, with wire-glass windows in dark grey iron frames illuminating the access corridors and front staircase. The rear glass curtain wall, largely preserved in original condition, faced the S-Bahn line and street, with an open fire-escape staircase on one side.

Kant-Garage is a reinforced concrete and brick construction designed in the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) or New Building (Neues Bauen) style. The six-storey structure occupies a site in Charlottenburg that originally included the Villa Schulze, destroyed during World War II. The building's most distinctive architectural feature is its double-spiral ramp system, which allowed continuous vehicular circulation. The rear curtain wall facade, facing the railway, represented an innovative application of industrial glazing. The grey-sand clinker brick frontage and wire-glass window system articulated the functional requirements of automotive architecture with modernist aesthetic principles. The 1936-1937 addition of the final roof storey by Siemens-Bauunion completed the building's present form. The 1948 replacement of the ground-floor curtain wall with brickwork, ordered by police authorities, represented a significant alteration to the original design. The site also historically incorporated petrol station facilities, which operated from 1930 until 2017, originally under brands including DAPOLIN-Shell-OLEX, later as Shell and Sprint stations.

Kant-Garage is located at Kantstraße 126/127 in Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany. The building is privately owned, having passed from Karl Heinz Pepper to Dirk Gädeke in 2016. Following the cessation of parking operations in 2017 and the subsequent dismantling of original interior fittings with heritage authority approval, the building has been repurposed for commercial use. From 2022 to 2023, Stilwerk, a design-focused real estate and retail company, occupied the premises. Since 2023, the structure has been substantially let to various tenants: the first floor houses a co-working concept called Garage127; the second floor contains a gallery; additional floors accommodate office spaces for various companies; Alpha Industry maintains a showroom in an octagonal space; and the fifth floor offers a special event hall for booking. A gastronomic establishment is planned for the former petrol station area in 2025. The building's future remains contested. Applications for demolition were submitted in 1991 and 2013 by the Pepper family, and in 2016 Gädeke sought to redevelop the site including a private rooftop penthouse, supported by an expert report claiming the structure was unsustainable. These proposals were opposed by significant architectural and heritage institutions. The website https://stilwerk.com/de/microsite/willkommen-in-berlin provides information about current commercial activities in the building.