The Haus der Statistik is a place with a complex history – characterized by upheaval, invisibility and re-appropriation.
Before the current building was constructed, there was a small neighborhood here, including the Jewish retirement home Gerlachstraße. During the Nazi era, this was confiscated and used as a collection camp for elderly Jewish people. Over 2,000 people were deported from here to concentration and extermination camps - a largely forgotten part of the city's history.
Despite being a listed building, it was demolished in 1955. From the end of the 1960s, the site was completely rebuilt: The three-part building complex of the Haus der Statistik was built according to plans by architects Manfred Hörner, Peter Senf and Joachim Härter, executed in reinforced concrete skeleton construction.
Built between 1968 and 1970, the building was the headquarters of the State Central Administration for Statistics of the GDR. After reunification, the building became the property of the Federal Institute for Real Estate (BImA). In the 1990s and 2000s, it housed the Berlin offices of the Gauck and Birthler authorities, which were responsible for processing the Stasi files.
The complex had stood empty since 2008 – with plans to demolish it in favor of a new building. But in 2015, an artistic intervention provided a turning point: the Haus der Statistik initiative drew attention to the site's potential with a fictitious construction site sign. The proposal: a cooperative use of the existing building for the common good, with broad support from civil society, the planned demolition was halted. In 2017, the building was transferred from the federal government to the state of Berlin as part of the capital city financing agreement – and thus became the basis for today's model project.
