Building

We acquired the building in 1998 and invested more than 4 million euro in renovating and converting it for our own use. Complex construction techniques were used in order to integrate the studios into the historic building using the “house in a house” method, which also offers the best possible acoustic insulation.

The building complex is an architectural monument and was designed by the Bauhaus architect Franz Ehrlich.

FRANZ EHRLICH (1907 – 1984), German architect and artist
Franz Ehrlich was one of the eclectic architects and designers of the German post-war and reconstruction period.

1927-1930 Studies at the Bauhaus in Dessau under the direction of Walter Gropius.

1937-1939 Imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp; as an architect and designer in the so-called “Werkstättenaufbaukommando” he plays an active role in the resistance effort, under the direction of Ernst Grube.

1939-1942 Conscripted to employment in Berlin and classified “unworthy of military service”.

1943-1945 In Greece as a soldier with penal battalion “999”. Taken prisoner of war in Yugoslavia.

1946-1947 Return to Germany. Architect and head of the department of reconstruction in Dresden. Member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany from 1946 onwards.

1948-1950 Freelance architect in Dresden. Design for the residential quarter in Fürstenberg (also known as Stalinstadt or Eisenhüttenstadt). General development plan for the University of Leipzig as a closed university town. Project planning and construction management for schools, administrative buildings and printing works. Lecturer at a technical college in Dresden.

1951-1953 Technical director of the VVB Industrie-Entwurf Berlin. Organisation and direction of the first state-owned design for industrial buildings. Responsible for the project planning of industrial buildings for the GDR’s first five-year plan (Freital, Eisenhüttenstadt, Calbe, Vockerode, Wismar, Stralsund).
Design and construction management for the RundFunkhaus (radio broadcasting house) in Berlin, the Fernsehzentrum (television centre) in the Adlershof area of Berlin and the Ministry of the Interior in Berlin.

1953-1960 Commissioner of the state-owned broadcasting committee, and, from 1955 to 1958, architect at the Ministry of Foreign Trade in the GDR. Project planning work for school and university buildings, commercial agencies, GDR embassies overseas, as well as radio and television studios.

1959-1962 Architect at the Research Foundation of the Academy of Sciences in the GDR.

1963-1966 Chief architect of the Leipzig Trade Fair, anniversary fair of 1965. Subsequently involved in extensive advance planning for the Leipzig Trade Fair right up until the year 2000.

1967-1975 Freelance in Dresden and Berlin, and at the same time architect at the Research Foundation of the Academy of Sciences. From 1968, official architect for the Deutsche Werkstätten in Hellerau.

From 1975, consultant architect of the President of the Academy of Sciences in the GDR. Design and construction work on the development of the Rathausstraße complex in Berlin in 1978.

1984 Franz Ehrlich dies on the 28th of November in Bernburg.