Haus des Lehrers, Building complex in Mitte, Berlin, Germany
Haus des Lehrers is a twelve-storey, 54-metre-high tower block on a 44 by 15 metre footprint near Alexanderplatz, built 1961–1964 by Hermann Henselmann's collective. Its steel skeleton carries a glass-aluminium curtain wall, and a 7-metre-high, 127-metre-long mosaic frieze of 800,000 stones by Walter Womacka wraps the third and fourth floors. A separate two-storey congress hall with a round dome stands next to it.
The foundation stone was laid on 12 December 1961, and the building opened on 9 September 1964. It replaced the Lehrervereinshaus on Alexanderstraße 41, a club and events building from 1908 that was destroyed in the Second World War. The adjacent congress hall with its round dome was completed at the same time.
The mosaic on the facade depicts people at work and in everyday moments, telling the story of East German society through its composition. The artwork made from hundreds of thousands of stones continues to shape the building's appearance and invites close observation.
The congress hall is a separate two-story building next to the tower, not inside it; it has been marketed as the Berliner Congress Center (bcc) since September 2003. The tower itself is an office building, so visitors should not expect general access to the upper floors. The complex stands just northeast of Alexanderplatz and is served by the surrounding S-Bahn and U-Bahn stations.
From 2003 to 2011, it hosted the annual Chaos Communication Congress, a major gathering for computer experts and hackers. This event made the building a special meeting point for the technology community.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 94,094 contributors worldwide.
