TIB ROWING CLUB BERLIN

WORDS FLORIAN HEILMEYER

ARCHITECTURE

PHOTOGRAPHY KAI BIENERT

“At first glance, the raw, bare building seems completely incongruous in its location.”

At first glance, the raw, bare building situated on the banks of the Spree, Berlin’s main river, seems completely incongruous in its location. Its façades of fair-faced concrete and polycarbonate panels don’t really fit into the idyllic green and blue surroundings. This new (in 2014) rowing club by Berlin-based architect Oliver Mang is more like an industrial building, not your typical rowing club at all.

If you picture “rowing club”, what comes to mind? A wooden building combining a large, dark undercroft filled with boats, with an elegant panelled club room above? Well, that’s what rowing clubs have looked like for the last 200 years or so. But this new “Berlin-type” version blows that model away. It’s a revolutionary building in many ways.