Spiegel Editorial Office, 1969

Many people recognize the canteen of today's Spiegel editorial building from films, music videos, or at least from photographs. However, very few know that it is the work of Verner Panton. In January 1969, the Spiegel publishing house and editorial team moved into a new Hamburg headquarters. Local architect Werner Kallmorgen designed the twelve-story glass high-rise and built it at the corner of Ost-West-Straße and Brandstwiete. The choice for the building's interior design fell on... Verner Panton. The then-director of the Spiegel publishing house, Hans Detlev Becker, commissioned the project to fill the cold exterior with warmth. Verner Panton created what is arguably his greatest work.

Company canteen dressed up as a restaurant

For the interior design, the Dane largely relied on his own designs. However, he was obligated to incorporate products from Knoll International for the furniture. The corridors up to the tenth floor were painted in different colors – each in a different shade from Knoll's color palette. orange, above red and violet up to blue. The ceilings and walls were painted in a tone-on-tone style. Carpet selected and laid out. When it got dark and the office doors were open, a unique play of colors could be observed from the outside. The cafeteria was also visible from the outside (and still is today). Countless orange Flowerpot lights, which were suspended at different lengths. Woven from metal. chairs with red seat cushions. Round tables with tabletops dotted in orange, pink, and red. Walls and ceilings completely covered with rows of square mirrored lights, which were also found in the foyer and swimming pool. The room resembled an avant-garde restaurant more than a company cafeteria.

Canteen and snack bar as a monument

Before these premises were renovated in the summer of 1998, the canteen and snack bar were placed under historical monument protection. The owner of the Spiegel building, Robert Vogel GmbH & Co. KG was thus required to preserve the original condition. Fortunately. Because while other interiors, such as those in the Gruner & Jahr publishing house, Restaurant Varna, or Visiona 0, no longer exist, this unique document of Panton's work was preserved thanks to the Hamburg Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments.

Loss of color

The rest of the interior of the offices, conference rooms, and waiting areas features green, circular shag rugs. Fun shell pendant lights The foam stalactites covered in green fabric, as well as the wall and ceiling coverings made of so-called mirror lights in the foyer and swimming pool, specially developed for this project, are no longer extant. While the swimming pool was destroyed by fire, the foyer was clad in gray granite in the 1990s, and most of the colorfully designed editorial corridors were quickly repainted in neutral tones. White After the demolition, the eighth floor remained the last bastion until early 2005. Then the foreign affairs department was also renovated, and the azure blue paint was removed. Once a publishing and editorial office, the high-rise housed only editorial departments until September 2011.