Emerging in the slipstream of the industrial age, the Spreebogen complex was ceremonially inaugurated in 1893 in the presence of Empress Auguste Viktoria. To this day, its ballrooms reflect the entrepreneurial spirit and grandeur of the era: ceiling heights of up to eight meters, exposed brick walls, tall steel-truss windows, and cast-iron columns make them a showcase of Berlin’s industrial architecture. The site’s namesake, Carl Bolle, was a pioneer of Berlin’s economic boom. With the establishment of the city’s most advanced large-scale dairy operation — the BOLLE Meierei — he built production facilities and workshops, accommodation for the majority of his roughly 2,000 employees, social institutions, stables, carriage yards, and retirement pastures on what is today the Spreebogen site. Known as “Bimmelbolle” for the handbells of his horse-drawn wagons, Bolle’s teams delivered fresh milk — and the latest gossip — straight to Berlin’s households, creating an early, lively urban logistics network that shaped everyday life.

Bolle

Over the decades, the ballrooms underwent a unique sequence of uses: originally a ballroom and works chapel, later a margarine production site, then home to the “Welt Kino,” one of Berlin’s first cinemas, and eventually the stage for the Berlin Kammerspiele. During an extensive restoration, the industrial character was not only preserved but carefully translated into the present.

Staff at ABION Spreebogen Waterside Hotel Berlin

Today, the Spreebogen stands for diversity, potential, and a central location — values that define Moabit itself. As one of Berlin’s most impressive event venues, the district unites hotel, dining, office space, residences, retail, and cultural offerings into a lively, mixed-use quarter. Historic elements are not only tangible in the listed ballrooms, but found throughout the entire site — especially at the ABION Hotel: historic photographs, original milk bottles and artifacts from the BOLLE era, the signature brick buildings, and a deliberately industrial interior all recall the site’s heritage and build a stylish bridge to its contemporary identity. In this way, the Spreebogen is both a key destination in Berlin-Mitte/Moabit and a visible testament to the city’s first great economic upswing — a place where lived values, foresight, and solid craftsmanship meet innovative ideas for modern use.