The corner of the original sandstone building (designed by Cremer & Wolffenstein in 1900) housing the headquarters of Berlin newspaper tycoon Rudolf Mosse was damaged in the First World War. Erich Mendelsohn, who was already famous for the expressionist Einstein Tower he designed in Potsdam at the age of 23, was commissioned to reconstruct and enlarge the Mosse building by adding two additional floors and renewing the corner. He decided to break completely with the conventional neo-baroque structure of the original building. He introduced new materials (ceramics and steel). and emphasized the horizontal lines. The new curved corner gives the building an aerodynamic feeling, helping the building to seem elongated in perspective.

The building was damaged in World War II and was renovated in 1992-93 (Peter Kolb, Bernd Kemper, Dieter Schneider) as the center of a new publishing district.