Wasserturm am Schlesischen Güterbahnhof

The Wasserturm stands beside the old Postbahnhof in Berlin’s Friedrichshain district. Built in the 1880s, it supplied water to steam locomotives through a network of pipes and cranes. The brick tower has an octagonal base and rises eighteen metres, its yellow façade divided into five uneven storeys. A broad metal stairway leads up to an arched viewing gallery beneath the copper-clad roof. The ensemble includes a nearby locomotive turntable and a brick control building, both now protected as monuments. The tower’s working life ended in the late 1980s after more than a century of service. In the 1990s the surviving railway elements were recognised as historic and incorporated into a new business campus. Recent restoration rebuilt every window and door to the original design, added a new external staircase and recreated the internal heating system. A second spiral stair inside the shaft now gives access to the upper rooms, where the iron water tank once held up to thirty thousand litres. Visitors find a quiet corner of the city dominated by the tower’s clean brick lines and copper roof. The restored turntable lies nearby, framed by new planting, while the control building waits for its future. From the gallery around the tower head there are views across the tracks and rooftops of the surrounding district. The campus buildings rise behind, their modern forms set against the historic brickwork.