Fichte-Bunker, Brick gas holder in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Germany.
The Fichte-Bunker is a circular brick gas storage structure standing 27 meters high with a 56-meter diameter in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. It features solid brick walls with multiple interior levels and now houses luxury apartments in its upper sections while keeping its original external appearance.
The second of four gasometers at the Fichtestraße station, it was built in 1884 to a design by Johann Wilhelm Schwedler and put into service that year. It stored 30,000 cubic metres of gas for Berlin's street lighting until 1937. In 1940–41 the interior was removed and the brick shell used as formwork for a reinforced-concrete air-raid shelter with about 750 rooms on six levels. After the war it served as a refugee home, a detention centre and a homeless shelter before being used for the Senate Reserve until 1988.
The bunker's nickname, "Bunker der Hoffnungslosen" (Bunker of the Hopeless), comes from its postwar use as a homeless shelter renting chambers at 2.50 DM a night; a reporter who stayed incognito called conditions unbearable. After 1945 it was typically the first stop for refugees arriving from East Germany. The preserved Deutz marine diesel engine used for emergency power can still be started during guided tours.
The bunker stands between Fichtestraße and Körtestraße in Kreuzberg, its brick cylinder set behind parked cars. The interior is not open as a museum; entry has generally been possible only on special guided tours, and the preserved Deutz marine diesel engine can be started during such visits. The rooftop apartments are private and reached by a bridge from a lift tower.
The gasometer's form follows an 1827 design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel for a circular church, and its steel dome is a Schwedler cupola, an unsupported curved vault spanning wide diameters. The entrance panel reads "BERLINER UNTERWELTEN e.V."
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