29 Neues Rathaus in Bernau/Germany

Neues Rathaus, Bürgermeisterstraße 25, 16321 Bernau, Germany
Picture: © Knauf/Stephan Klonk

The New City Hall in Bernau in Berlin is a cubic building with a clear formal language. It surprises with a plaster in broom finish technique, which runs through the entire facade up to the top edge of the terrain. With its three-dimensional effect, the city coat of arms next to the main entrance, executed in sgraffito technique, draws the eye.

The new building is located on the market square in the historic city center near St. Mary’s Church. To integrate the building into the overall urban concept of downtown Bernau, aspects of monument protection had to be taken into account in the planning and execution. Next to the entrance, the town coat of arms was to be carved out of the plaster in the historic sgraffito technique.

The entire facade was to be provided with a mineral ETICS and designed with the historic broom brush technique in horizontal alignment. A particular challenge was to carry out the broom finish all the way down to the top edge of the site. Special craftsmanship was required for the historic sgraffito technique. The city coat of arms was worked into the two-layer top coat as a relief. The bottom layer of plaster is dark gray, with a light gray layer above it – so that when the plaster is scraped out, the darker layer emerges and a spatial effect is created. “The surface treatment gives the facade surface a special handcrafted imprint,” says architect Francesca Saetti.