The Teepott stands immediately beside the lighthouse and is one of the most distinctive pieces of architecture on the German Baltic coast. Built in 1968 to a design by Ulrich Müther, it has a wavy concrete roof of hyperbolic paraboloid shells — a form that makes it look simultaneously like breaking waves and a swooping gull. The building was an engineering tour de force for its time, and Müther, who worked almost exclusively in East Germany, became internationally recognised for this type of thin-shell concrete construction.
The name means "teapot," a nickname given by locals that stuck, though the building has nothing to do with tea. It has served as a restaurant, event venue, and cultural space over the decades. Today it houses a tourist information office, a restaurant, and exhibition space; the interior is worth seeing for its curved concrete ceiling as much as any exhibit.
The juxtaposition of the traditional red-and-white lighthouse and this boldly modern structure from the GDR era gives the seafront at Warnemünde a slightly unexpected quality. Both buildings are photographed constantly, and the view from the beach taking in both is the iconic image of the resort.