Respectful interplay of new and old at Hotel H10 Berlin

The four-star Hotel H10 is a successful example of the integration of modern architecture into a historical ensemble of buildings. With an eight-storey transverse building as the backdrop, Jan Kleihues has completed the listed school building from the year 1889 by creating a perfect setting: “With its uniformly windowed façade, the new building has been kept very simple. It consciously retires into the background of the historic “gem” with its striking brick façade”. The size and colour of the clinkers used were matched to the original building and they were laid in a half-brick offset stretcher bond. Kleihues: “It was decided not to make any horizontal or vertical division. The large façade surfaces are structured with texturing of the masonry. Bricks of different depth were laid flush to the inside of the building so a very lively surface with echoes of the historical brick architecture results on the outside.” Offset at three different depths, the header-laid terracotta bricks lend the large sidewalls and the plain windowed façade a haptic and almost organic structure.