page_title: Europa-Center
section_title: History of the site
hierarchical_section_title: Europa-Center / History of the site
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: „Neues Romanisches Haus“, auch „Romanisches Haus II“, in Berlin-Charlottenburg, am Auguste-Viktoria-Platz (Breitscheidplatz) östlich der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche; erbaut 1900-1901 nach Entwurf des Architekten Franz Schwechten; Aufnahme wohl kurz nach der Fertigstellung
context_page_description: The Europa-Center is a building complex on Breitscheidplatz in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, with a shopping mall and an 86 metres high-rise tower. Erected between 1963 and 1965, it is today a historically preserved building.
context_section_description: From 1897 a residential building was erected at the site of the present-day Europa-Center, vis-à-vis the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and likewise designed in a Neo-Romanesque style according to plans by Franz Schwechten. Then part of Berlin's fashionable "New West" (today also known as "City West"), it was, from 1916, home to the Romanisches Café, a popular meeting place for writers, artists and people in the theatre business, as well as those who aspired to join them.
  During a RAF air raid in World War II on the night of 22/23 November 1943, the building burnt down and laid in ruins. After the war, the cleared premises were used only intermittently for more than a decade, according to need. Makeshift constructions were used variously by wrestlers, circus performers and missionaries, followed by food outlets and briefly a cinema hosting so-called Sittenfilme ("films of manners"). A local newspaper described the central site as a "stain on Berlin's calling card".
caption: Romanisches Haus about 1900
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