Design & architecture

One of the most eye-catching façades in Berlin
The Ellington Hotel moved into a renowned address, which is also included in every Berlin architecture guide. Because the "Haus Nürnberg", as it was originally called, is decorated with one of the longest, most eye-catching and perhaps one of the most attractive façades in Berlin: Above the continuous shop storey, long square-headed rows of windows which illuminate the four upper storeys. The walls are clad in lavish travertine, framed by narrow strips of dark bricks above and below windows with their pronounced profiles. The 185 metre long façade, built in several construction phases and therefore not fully uniform, is divided up by external staircase towers and bay windows. The rows of windows nestle around their rounded corners, making the elegant façade appear very dynamic. The two external staircase towers protrude above the eaves moulding of the flat roof. The building entrances and the shop front windows have brass frames - which also contributes to the smart outer appearance of this commercial building, which was built in 1928-31 under the influence of the trailblazing buildings of the Berlin architect Erich Mendelsohn.

A successful team of architects
The "Nürnberg Building", also called the "Tauentzien Palace" or "Femina Palace", was designed by a team of architects very successful at the time: Richard Bielenberg and Josef Moser. In their office in Fasanenstraße, in Berlin's Charlottenburg district, they had already designed numerous commercial and office buildings since 1905: including the head office of the "Disconto-Gesellschaft" (the predecessor of the Deutsche Bank) in Unter den Linden, which today houses the Deutsche Guggenheim museum; the annex to the Zollernhof, today home to the capital city studio of the German public broadcasting company ZDF, and the offices of the A. Schaaffhausen'scher Bankverein in Behrenstraße, now the offices of the Bavarian State Representation in Berlin.

The charm of the late nineteen-twenties
But the ELLINGTON HOTEL building is not only listed under a preservation order because of its façade, to a large extent kept in its original state. The charm of the late nineteen-twenties and early thirties has also been retained inside in the entrance halls, the staircases and several rooms and halls: with white and green wall tiles, stair rails made of brass, stucco ornamentation on the ceilings, and gilded lettering on the walls. The owner, Märkische Bau- und Grundstücksverwertung-AG, spared neither trouble nor expense. A "fantastic capital attraction" is what the "Deutsche Bauhütte" magazine called the "Femina-Palast" ballroom in 1932, which it presented to German architects as the "newest entertainment venue in Berlin". This only referred to a part of the building, namely the ground floor of the part of the building on Lietzenburger Straße with its two-storey ball room at the back. Pleasure in the four upper storeys of the front building was more likely subdued during those economically turbulent times: They were let as offices.