Media City by Studio Libeskind

Media City

Studio Libeskind together with mayor Mike Schubert, building councillor Bernd Rubelt, builder Jan Kretzschmar (KW-Development) and Babelsberg Filmpark owner, Friedhelm Schatz, present plans for “Media City“ at the Potsdam Museum on November 12, 2021. The city of Potsdam has given the green light for a workshop procedure for the planning of the 94,000-square-meter office park, which is to become an integral part of the film park in Babelsberg.

With the new office ensemble, we are not only creating more needed office space for the media city, but also making Babelsberg even more attractive with this eye-catcher of international appeal. The streaming services in particular are expanding their business more and more and need not only more content, but also locations where it can be produced. With our project, we can create the right conditions for this,” says developer Jan Kretzschmar.

The design proposes a 66-meter-high circular office tower that anchors four lower-rise arc buildings of 44 and 22 meters. The lower, wider buildings are to be built at the front of the street, with the higher tower set-back from the street creating more open space. The building site for the Media City complex is fallow and undeveloped. It is located at the intersection of Großbeerenstrasse/August-Bebel-Strasse, which is located next to the well-known “Action Volcano” of the Filmpark and diagonally opposite the Potsdam-Medienstadt Babelsberg train station.

The design of the five buildings is inspired by the forms associated with filmmaking: stacked 70-millimeter film reels; camera apertures; and lenses. The building ensemble is intended to further secure the development of Babelsberg as a world-renowned film and media location, said Architect Daniel Libeskind. “I am delighted to be able to now turn this design into reality together with KW-Development and the city of Potsdam,” added Daniel Libeskind.

Project developer Jan Kretzschmar acquired the site from the Filmpark in 2020. The office ensemble is not the first joint construction project between the two players: Kretzschmar and Schatz have already developed the residential and commercial buildings in Marlene-Dietrich-Allee as well as the new building for the costume collection in the Media City.

The collection building for the Film University and the Film Museum are nearing completion; the school, after-school care center, sports hall and parking garage are in the starting blocks. Aproximately, 300 million euros are now to be invested in the Libeskind project in order to create around 5,000 jobs at the site and thus stabilize the media location in the long term and enable international development.

The future tenants are to come from the media industry. Therefore, in addition to offices, rooms for post-production, sound and gaming are also planned, because the need is there,” explains Kretzschmar. But public uses will also bring life to the new quarter, for example through restaurants and rehearsal rooms for music groups.

The dynamic development in the media industry and the associated importance of Babelsberg as a business location is also underlined by a current analysis by the Potsdam Economic Development Agency, which sees great opportunities for the whole of Potsdam associated with a future-oriented further development of the media city. It predicts that the city as a whole will need around 14,500 additional employees and 51 hectares of commercial space by 2030. The media industry, with its spatial focus in the Media City, represents an important core competence and a major economic factor in the state capital. Source by Studio Libeskind.