By inviting start-ups and academics into a working factory site, the Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry and Science hopes to speed up invention
The Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry & Science’s test bed site. Photo credits: Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry & Science
Siemensstadt, a factory complex in west Berlin roughly the size of the city’s airport, looks at first glance like a classic symbol of European deindustrialisation.
Built by the Siemens family at the turn of the 20th century when Germany led the world in fields such as motors, cables and cars, the site is dotted with handsome redbrick factories and UNESCO-protected apartment buildings that once housed an enormous industrial workforce.
But its industrial heyday is in the past. Although some factories on the site are still operational, producing caravan-sized motors, for example, work has shifted to cheaper sites in Czechia and China. The north of Siemensstadt is being https://www.berlin.de/sen/stadtentwicklung/staedtebau/einzelprojekte…
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