Liminal Space: East Side Gallery Berlin Hotel by Grzywinski+Pons.

A new hotel has opened at the heart of the East Side Gallery memorial in Berlin’s Friedrichshain neighbourhood. Part of the popular Locke collection, the 176-room hotel offers a cafe, bar, lounge, co-working and event spaces all designed by New York-based architecture studio Grzywinski+Pons.

When the longest surviving section of the Berlin Wall—among history’s most direct architectural manifestations of repression—organically transformed into a canvas for the free expression of international artists, The East Side Gallery was born. “It is difficult not to be moved by that inversion. The same structure that was built to divide and restrict is now a magnet for interaction and expression. What better inspiration could we hope to guide our own architectural pursuits?” Matthew Grzywinski, Principal at Grzywinski+Pons explained.

To embody the gallery’s sentiment as a centre for intersection rather than exclusion Grzywinski+Pons conceived the hotel as a liminal space—a place for exchange, a crossroads for ideas and experiences alike. “We designed the project as a series of site-specific thresholds, interrogating the tension between public and private, residents and guests, art and commerce, the city and the river, Friedrichschain and Kreuzberg,” Matthew goes on.

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The ground floor, comprising most of the public spaces of the hotel, also serves to connect Muhlenstrasse with the River Spree via an opening in the Berlin Wall itself. Grzywinski+Pons retained this connection both through line-of-sight, and as a public right-of-way, while accommodating the cafe, bar, reception, lounge and co-working spaces within.“We treated these social spaces as a microcosm of Berlin itself. There are no restrictions to visibility, access or circulation and the entire level presents itself as a legible whole,” he continues.

The tension between public and private within the social spaces is also iterated through materiality. All exterior walls are either fully glazed or exposed structural concrete. Lofty ceilings and services are unenclosed and monochrome. Built-in seating and planters are fabricated from locally sourced bricks composed of recycled sand and lime fixed upon unadorned porcelain floors.

A horizontal datum was established below the eye line of standing occupants, using fluted demi-walls and ombre curtains to gently organise the volume. Timber, tumbled stone, onyx, zellige tile, and plaster clad the joinery while slatted canopies shelter various compositions throughout the space.

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Silvery-sage high pile rugs, rattan screens, ultrasuede upholstery and rustic ceramics sit atop floors and built-ins. Verdant vegetation spills out of planters and cascades from the ceiling. Furnishings encompass a broad but cohesive palette of timber, cane, fabric, cord and stone, while soft task lighting further promotes intimacy in the expansive space.

Grzywinski+Pons also designed all of the furniture in the rooms—turmeric chairs, pastel mirrors, and heavily braided grass rugs are juxtaposed with suede and rattan floor screens and bedheads.

“The organising principle for all of these interventions is for our liminal space to exalt exchange and coexistence. This is a place where people—guests and locals alike—can be together-together or alone together and be better off for it. Isn’t that the magic of Berlin itself?” Matthew concludes.

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[Images courtesy of Grzywinski+pons. Photography by Nicholas Worley.]