Wilmersdorf Mosque (also: Ahmadiyya Mosque)

Rehabilitation in accordance with the preservation order

Germany's oldest mosque was renovated step by step by D:4 in line with the requirements for preservation and the project was completed in 2022.

The Mosque

The building of the Lahore Ahmadiyya community in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, which was planned from 1924 and opened in 1928, is considered the oldest surviving mosque in Germany. Its meeting room holds nearly 400 visitors and is located in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf, south of today's Fehrbelliner Platz.

The mosque has two minarets, each 35 metres high, and a 26-metre high dome with a diameter of 10 metres, and fascinates with oriental elements whose design language is based on Indian models. The building was erected in the Mughal style and does not follow the European architectural style of that time. However, the building materials and technology are adapted to conventional German solid construction, so that the mosque combines exotic influences and German tradition: brick masonry, wooden beam ceilings and a wooden roof construction are combined with decorative crowns, minarets, strong colours in the interior and ornamental stencilling on walls, door frames and columns.

The architect Karl Alfred Herrmann, about whom only little information is known, was entrusted with the design of an even larger central mosque in Charlottenburg before the planning of the Wilmersdorf mosque, but this could not be realised for financial reasons.

In the course of World War II, the minarets, dome and imam's house suffered severe damage. Over the coming decades, sporadic repairs were carried out, some of which, however, resulted in major structural damage. Starting in the mid-1990s, the complex began to be gradually renovated, including the reconstruction of the two minarets.

Services

Since 2014, D:4 has been entrusted with the further renovation of the Wilmersdorf mosque. Due to necessity, the flat roofs of the dome building were first provisionally sealed. With financial support from the Federal Ministry of Culture and the State Office for the Protection of Monuments, the following measures were successfully renovated in the first package:

• Ornamental elements and roof levels
• Waterproofing work at the base of the mosque
• Enclosure
• Hull renovation of the mosque
• Mihrab repair
• Facade renovation of the adjacent imam's house

The Lotto Foundation Berlin has been supporting the project since 2020.

Remediation measures:

• Interior renovation with dome (completed in April 2021)
• Interior renovation with flooring (June 2021 to August 2022)

Amir Aziz, Imam of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Mosque community of the Wilmersdorfer Mosque in Berlin, says the following about the cooperation with D:4 regarding the renovation:

"We appreciate the keen interest shown by them in completing the first phase, and the skill and diligence shown by the chief architect and the rest of the staff, who kept a constant watch over the work. They have been holding constant discussions with the imam of the Mosque and the Executive Committee and that has added quality and strength to the renovation work.

Press

> Daily Mirror 08/2022

> Monuments online 08/2022

> AIV Lecture

> rbb television: Broadcast Bilderbuch - Berlin-Wilmersdorf from 13.04.2020 (from min. 27)

Link tips for context:

> Muslims in Berlin in the 1920s | Interview at Deutschlandfunkkultur with Gerdien Jonker (5/15/2022)

> Historical background / Mosque archive

> Research project Urban Authenticity by the Center for Contemporary History Research in Potsdam