Archaeological windows in Berlin’s historic centre:
Townhouses at the Hotel Capri by Fraser

Closely connected to the town’s market and economy was the public weigh house, first mentioned in 1612. It was used for public control of the weight of goods and the levying of duties on them, such as taxes or customs duties. Not even a hundred years later, the old town hall was replaced by a new Baroque building.
The reason was King Frederick I’s plan to merge the governing bodies of Berlin and Cölln and to have the joint council meet there. In 1710, the two towns were united with the municipalities of Friedrichstadt, Dorotheenstadt and Friedrichswerder to form the royal capital of Berlin. However, Frederick I’s son and successor, Frederick William I, did not pursue this plan further. Consequently, by the time it was completed in 1723, the new town hall was no longer intended to serve its original purpose.

Parts of the municipal administration moved into the new building, but not the council. Later, lessons were held there by the Cölln Latin School (grammar school) and the elementary school.
During the March Revolution of 1848, fighting took place at the barricades in front of the town hall, as well as inside the building itself. Several people were killed in the violence.

The municipal administration was relocated to Rotes Rathaus in 1870, and in 1880 the Märkisches Museum moved into premises in the Cölln Town Hall. By 1899, the Baroque town hall of Cölln was no linger in use and demolished to make way for the widening of the adjacent street called Gertraudenstraße.
The town hall complex comprised not only the town hall building itself, but also several neighbouring buildings. Within this complex, the town weigh house was relocated to the side facing Petriplatz already in 1829. Markings in the paving there now commemorate the town hall and the weigh house.

While the historical record knows of two properties on the site, there may originally have been three medieval plots of land there. This is suggested by the size and layout of the plots. Although the town’s medieval layout remained largely intact until the 19th century and, in some cases, until the Second World War, the merging of individual plots occurred repeatedly from the late Middle Ages onwards.
The preserved wall remains and floor surfaces inside the Archaeological Window date from the 14th or 15th to the 19th century. Many extensions and alterations can be traced in the structures. Generations of homeowners repeatedly adapted the buildings to changing needs, replacing floors, extending buildings into courtyard areas, and adding or removing parts of the houses. Some 600 years of domestic building and living in the city have thus left their mark on this site.

A well and a sewage pipe also bear witness to changes in the city. They are located just a few metres apart. They are likely to date from about the same epoch. The well is dated to the 19th century. And between the middle and the end of that century, Berlin’s central water supply and sewage system were established. The well in the cellar of No. 22 is situated in an area that originally formed a courtyard. It is unclear, however, whether it was built into the house or was already dug into the in courtyard prior to its development. In any case, the connection to the main water supply rendered it obsolete; the shaft was filled in.

During the excavations, the researchers discovered that remains dating from the 13th or 14th century still lie beneath the cellar floors. It is possible that, in addition to pits and layers of earth, wooden cellars, wells and latrines may also be found there. Such features have been uncovered in other areas during the excavations at Petriplatz. Beneath the Archaeological Window at the Hotel Capri, they are preserved in the ground similar to documents in an archive.

The remains of all the buildings on Petriplatz were cleared away in the two decades following the war and a car park was built – thus the centre of Cölln disappeared from the surface.
Of the buildings constructed by the company Rudolph Hertzog, only the house at 26 Brüderstraße, on the corner of Scharrenstraße remains; it dates from 1908–1909. The company’s history effectively came to an end with the expropriation of Rudolph Hertzog’s descendants by the GDR in 1949. The state’s administration set up a fashion store in the building. After the German reunification, the building stood empty; it was renovated between 2015 and 2018 and is now back in use. The fact that a major online retailer has set up offices there seems like an interesting twist in history.
The building at 26 Brüderstraße and the archaeological remains in the hotel Capri are listed monuments. Remnants of the historic buildings may still lie beneath the pavements and road surfaces of Breite Straße and Gertraudenstraße though.