For more than 100 years, glass was manufactured on the Alt-Stralau peninsula in Berlin-Friedrichshain. All that remains of the former production facility is a renovated workshop building that now houses luxury apartments. Another remnant of that era has also survived: a yellow-brick building with a red-tiled roof. The building on Glasbläserallee in Alt-Stralau once served as the administrative headquarters of the Stralau glassworks. Next year, a new chapter is set to begin for the long-vacant building.

The building is clearly in need of renovation. Graffiti covers much of the yellow brickwork, while the windows are missing and the openings boarded up. Next year, the state-owned housing company Degewo will begin renovation work. Both the land and the building belong to Degewo, which is developing the site into a support centre for refugees. However, the old brick building will not be used as accommodation but will instead house advice services. Above all, it is intended to reopen as a meeting place for the neighbourhood. Cultural and social activities are planned, although details have yet to be specified.

Stralau Glassworks in Friedrichshain: Expansion, War and Destruction

The building has a long history. In 1889, two entrepreneurs purchased the property on what was then Dorfstraße, now Alt-Stralau 63. They founded the Stralauer Flaschenfabrik Evert & Neumann KG at a time when beer was increasingly being sold in bottles. By 1894, the factory was already producing 20 million bottles a year, by hand until 1909 and later using fully automated machinery. Hundreds of people worked at the factory. At the end of 1896, the company became a public limited company under the name Stralauer Glashütte AG. Housing for workers, known as the Hüttenhäuser, was also built alongside the factory buildings.

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The First World War marked the beginning of a dark chapter in the glassworks’ history, as prisoners of war were forced to manufacture containers for poison gas shells. After the war, additional land was purchased on Kynaststraße to establish a railway connection in 1920. In 1931, the glassworks merged with Siemens to form Siemensglas Alt-Stralau. During the Second World War, forced labourers worked in the glass factory. In February 1945, an air raid destroyed 70 percent of the facility.

Accommodation for Refugees: New Building to Ease Pressure on Hotels and Emergency Shelters

Following the establishment of East Germany in 1949, the company continued production as VEB Stralauer Glaswerke. In 1990, Stralauer Glashütte GmbH was founded and was taken over by Nienburger Glaswerke in 1991. Production ceased five years later. In the 1990s, soil contaminated by the factory first had to be removed. Today, the entire peninsula is a fully developed residential neighbourhood.

A new building planned for the Alt-Stralau site will provide accommodation for 300 refugees. According to the State Office for Refugee Affairs and Accommodation (LFU), the number of arriving refugees has been declining for several years. “However, this does not mean that accommodation facilities have low occupancy rates. As of October 2026, more than 2,800 refugees are still living in hotels and hostels rented by the LFU, and almost 800 people remain in emergency accommodation at the former Tempelhof Airport,” an LFU spokesperson said. It is therefore urgently necessary to move people out of emergency accommodation and into permanent housing, said the spokesperson.

This text was originally written and published on the 7th of October in German. It was translated into English with the use of artificial intelligence (AI).