Märkisches Museum (Berlin U-Bahn)


Märkisches Museum is a Berlin U-Bahn station located on the in the Mitte district. Since 1935 it has been named after the nearby Märkisches Museum, the municipal museum of the history of Berlin and the Mark Brandenburg.

Design

In the course of the extension of the then so-called Spittelmarktlinie as a center line to Alexanderplatz was the station island bridge in the immediate vicinity of the bank in the subsequent route to crossing Spree, which is why he represented a very special for that time very deep six and a half meters below the street level, a structural feature of that time.
Thanks to its deep location, Alfred Grenander, as an architect, was able to equip the station with a large and spacious hall and a wicker arch vault. Because of this unusual construction in Berlin, the station was often associated with those of the Paris Métro. In the Berlin subway network only the subway station Platz der Luftbrücke has such a columnless construction.
The central platform is 121.3 meters long and 7.6 meters wide; The hall is 5.2 meters high at its highest point.
For the station Grenander chose the color code green, as well as for the station Leipziger place, because its color scheme for this distance provided for a regular repetition of the colors. The station, which has a small middle floor in each of the east and west, received a 121.3 meters long and 7.6 meters wide central platform.
After lengthy construction work, the elevated railway company started operation on July 1, 1913 on the 1.7 kilometer Spittelmarkt - Alexanderplatz line.

History

The station, then called Inselbrücke, opened on 1 July 1913 in the course of the eastern continuation of Berlin's second U-Bahn line from Spittelmarkt to Alexanderplatz. Architect Alfred Grenander designed a vaulted hall relatively deep beneath street level due to the adjacent Spree underpass leading to Klosterstrasse. It was renamed in 1935 to Märkisches Museum. There was a slight damage to the ceiling on 24 May 1944 from the aerial bomb. In early April 1945, an air raid damaged the seal of the subway tunnel under the Spree between the stations Klosterstraße and Märkisches Museum. As a result, the tunnel has been filled up using explosives.
On July 31, 1945, the Märkisches Museum station was put into operation again. Initially it was the terminus of a shuttle service to Stadtmitte. Until November 1, 1945, the Spree underpass to the underground station Klosterstraße could initially be restored in a single track. On 15 September 1946, the circulation operation between Pankow and Ruhleben was at least until the construction of the wall due to the interruption of the line again complete.
It is one of only 2 Berlin U-Bahn stations with no central columns, the other being Platz der Luftbrücke.
In 1987 and 1988, as part of events for the 750th anniversary of Berlin, the GDR government commissioned decorations for the station with the theme of "the history of Berlin". Artist Jo Doese constructed twelve mosaics depicting maps of the city of Berlin, from its beginnings as the twin towns of Berlin and Cölln in 1237 through to the modern city in 1987, with each mosaic being constructed from building materials that would have been used in the city at the time. There are two copies of each of six maps on opposite walls of the station, one set near each track. In between the maps are reliefs by artists Karl-Heinz Schäfer and Ulrich Jörke, each in a style appropriate to the time period of the adjacent map ; unlike the maps, each side of the station has unique reliefs.

Current Operations

Märkisches Museum is operated by BVG, the provider of most of Berlin's rapid transit. Situated on the line, trains from Märkisches Museum serve Pankow to the north, stopping at significant destinations such as Alexanderplatz, and Ruhleben to the west, stopping at Potsdamer Platz, Kurfürstendamm and the Olympic Stadium.