A former data center in Potsdam, Germany, is at risk of demolition.

Now used as an arts, culture, and creativity center – but still locally known as the Potsdam Data Center – the facility is the subject of debate surrounding whether it should be maintained, or torn down.

Located at Dortustraße 46, 14467 Potsdam, the facility was home to the Brandenburg IT service provider ZIT-BB’s data center until 2017, when the company relocated to an industrial park in Spandau. At this point, the entire facility became dedicated to community creatives and artistic endeavors.

The future of the building remains in question, with demolition on the cards since 2023. Partial land-owner Garrison Church Foundation (GCF) has accused the city council of a “lack of communication” regarding its plans.

In December 2024, the city council decided to maintain the data center, announcing plans to “create the conditions at an early stage for an extension of the lease for the data center by at least five years for the period from 2026 onwards,” and that “contractual models for a period of renovation of the data center should also be developed.”

Prior to this, the data center’s lease was expected to end at the beginning of 2026. GCF has said that the city did not communicate nor discuss these options with GCF, and has called for a feasibility study.

The GCF is also raising how the city plans to fund the maintenance, preservation, and necessary partial renovation of the data center should it not be demolished.

Further issues come from GCF’s plans for a new church steeple on the Garrison Church which lies very close to the data center – according to a report from RBB, too close for fire safety regulations. This had been tolerated on the basis that the creative space at the data center would soon be replaced elsewhere, but will now come into question.

Architects for Future Potsdam has commissioned experts to investigate the impact of the church steeple and said they have found that demolition is not necessary, adding: “In such a case, the new building, in this case, the garrison church tower, would usually have to adapt to the existing one.”

The GCF has previously also proposed developing a plenary hall on the site.

The RBB report adds that those currently renting space in the data center for creative purposes are doing so at a very low rate as the city has given the building to operators at a “cost price,” meaning rent is currently only enough to directly cover running costs. Should the building be retained, those rents would likely have to go up.

Regardless, as partial owners of the site, the city will have to come to an agreement with the GCF in order to keep the building. Mayor Mike Schubert said: “It won’t work without the foundation.”

The board of trustees and the Mayor are set to meet again on April 8 to discuss the data center, but without a resolution, demolition looks likely.

The Potsdam Data Center was built as a three-part ensemble, constructed between 1969 and 1971, though only the administrative building remains.

Part of the land on which the data center sits was home to the Garrison Church which was blown up in 1968.

According to the Potsdam Data Center website, the facility was built as part of a network of data processing centers between 1969 and 2015, with origins in the socialist GDR government’s plan to digitize the republic in the late 1950s following the conclusion of World War II.

The data center was inaugurated in 1967, and provided services to around 45 companies in Potsdam. In 1969, it was converted into the VEB Information Processing Potsdam as a prototype for the introduction of electronic data processing in the entire district-managed industry of the GDR. Three Robotron 300 electronic computers were installed in the building, and by 1976 the facility had an ESER computer EC 1040 which was based on the IBM System 360, and in 1987 an EC 1057.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the GDR, the data center found that its technology was mostly outdated by Western standards.

In 1991, the data center operator – DVZ – was incorporated into the Brandenburg State Office for Data Processing and Statistics, which became a state-owned company in 2001. In 2009, the Brandenburg IT service provider (ZIT-BB) emerged from the state-owned company for data processing and IT service tasks, finally leaving the facility in 2017.

Since 2015, the building has been operated by the SPI Foundation, which progressively transformed the data center into the arts and creativity hub it is today.

The building is known for the 60m long mosaic that covers three walls of the building called “Man Conquers the Cosmos.” The mosaic was created in 1972, and is described by artist Fritz Eisel as an examination of electronic data processing between Einstein’s relativity formula E=mc² and Marx’s law of the economy of time.”