Mendelssohn-Remise

The Mendelssohn-Remise on Berlin's Jägerstraße is a landmark-protected complex that tells the story of the venerable banking house Mendelssohn & Co. The main building at numbers 49 and 50 was constructed between 1891 and 1893 by the architects Heino Schmieden and Martin Gropius in the Neoclassical style. Built of light-colored Seeberg sandstone, it is a two-story structure with a horizontally emphasized facade, topped by a bold cornice and an attic balustrade. The ground floor originally served as a bank branch, while the second floor housed stately rooms for the partners. The building has been largely preserved in its original condition and most recently housed various institutions before being acquired by HGHI Holding in 2017.

Inside, you can admire the generous layout and high-quality furnishings, much of which have been preserved. At the center is a square banking hall rising through both floors, with columns, a light marble floor, and a large skylight. Grouped around this hall on the ground floor are offices and two steel-armored vaults, the larger of which now serves as a conference room. The staircase of polished black Belgian limestone with a gilded wrought-iron railing leads up to the upper floor, where the former executive offices are located. On the stairwell stands a bust of Franz von Mendelssohn the Elder, designed by Reinhold Begas.

A particular cultural-historical highlight are the stucco reliefs, partly genre scenes and partly allegorical, in the lunettes above the doors of the upper floor. These works come from the workshop of the sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow and were originally intended for the hall of the old Berlin stock exchange. When it was demolished in 1893, the reliefs returned to the heirs of the donor. They take trade as their theme and show, among other things, scenes of long-distance commerce in the Orientalist style, depicting encounters between European and Arab merchants in an exotic setting.