For more than a century, the Bärenquell Brewery played an important role in Berlin’s industrial history. Since production stopped in 1994, the vast complex has gradually fallen silent. While parts of the site are beginning to find new uses, much of its scale and potential remain inaccessible to the public. Our proposal asks a simple question: how can people once again experience this remarkable place?
Rather than treating the brewery as a collection of individual buildings, we approach it as a landscape to explore. A continuous network of pathways winds through the existing architecture, climbing onto roofs, crossing courtyards and opening unexpected views across the site and the River Spree. The route transforms the brewery into a sequence of discoveries, inviting visitors to wander, pause and experience the site’s industrial heritage from entirely new perspectives.
The pathways do more than connect destinations. They create new public spaces where people can meet, gather and spend time together. A gently winding rooftop walk embraces the historic brewery buildings, while a suspended landscape inside Haus J introduces a new spatial experience within the former industrial hall. Towards the waterfront, the intervention unfolds into an accessible public route that reconnects the site with the Spree and creates a distinctive new identity along the river.
Designed as a lightweight and reversible intervention, the proposal allows the historic architecture to remain the protagonist. The new structure reveals the existing buildings reveals in new ways, encouraging exploration, interaction and a renewed relationship between the brewery, the city and its visitors.
