Bread Factory (Berlin)
_Brotfabrik.jpg)
_Carl_Friedrich_Wilhelm_Gra%C3%9Fnick.jpg)
The bread factory is a Berlin art and culture center . It is located on Caligariplatz in the Weissensee district on the Weißenseer Spitze , near the intersection of Prenzlauer Allee and Wisbyer Strasse / Ostseestrasse . Today it houses a gallery of young Eastern European photo art , a stage, a cinema and a bar. The events in the fields of visual arts, performing arts, film and literature are organized by Glashaus e. V. worn. The cultural events of the bread factory have received several awards in recent years. Jörg Fügmann is the managing director.
history
Founded until 1970
The Weißensee master baker Kohler founded his bakery in 1890 in what was then Prenzlauer Chaussee 3–4 under the name “Brotfabrik Michael Kohler. First shredder country bread bakery ”. The actual bread factory, however, was not built until 1914 at a cost of 60,000 marks . The building was expanded in 1929. In World War II it was slightly damaged; Debris from this period was found during construction work in 1992. After the bread factory's master baker fled to West Berlin in 1952 , it was closed and its buildings were divided up, including a seltzer water factory and a shop for workwear. After the seltzer water factory was closed in 1970, the main building was used as a warehouse for a large kitchen, and sweets were sold in the former bakery.
Before turning point: the 1980s
In 1985, the Weißensee Academy of Art became interested in the building in order to establish an in-house youth club. The lecturers at the art college cooperated with a Saxon construction company for the renovation; the municipality of Weißensee was responsible for running the house. The youth club was opened on March 6, 1986 under the name "An der Weißenseer Spitze" and developed into a cultural attraction over the next few weeks, where concerts, discos, exhibitions, readings, discussions and theater performances took place. When the youth club was closed for political reasons on May 8th of the same year, the Weißensee School of Art withdrew from the building and the Weißensee district took it over as a municipal institution. On April 1, 1987, the youth club reopened. In addition to the artistic activities, there was also a café, but the discotheque and live music events had to be discontinued in December following a complaint from the neighboring residents. To this end, the off-theater offer was expanded and a separate theater group was also created, the “Theater at the Top”. In the following years, building work also developed circles for sculpture and ceramics as well as preparatory courses for painting and drawing, which were offered by the Weissensee School of Art. From 1988 the youth club also held rock concerts outside the home: on the Weißensee open-air stage, in the Toni cinema, in the Treptow cultural center and in the Langhansstrasse youth club.
In order to enforce exhibitions that would otherwise not have been approved, the Gallery Advisory Board was founded in 1989, made up of visual artists and freelance art scholars. This increased the number of political discussions in the house, especially about literary events. The courtyard greening, which was carried out with the support of soldiers of the USSR armed forces, also contributed to the popularity of the bread factory. After the fall of the Berlin Wall , the district of Weißensee gave the bread factory a completely free hand in designing its program, and so ideas about a grassroots democratic restructuring of the bread factory were able to mature. In a short time, employees and friends of the bread factory developed a concept according to which the various projects were integrated independently of one another, demanding in terms of content and on an equal footing. The new project started on May 15, 1990 under the name "Brotfabrik", which is supposed to remember the origin of the building.
After the fall of the century: the 1990s
After the fall of the Wall , readings, theater performances and exhibitions took place that would not have been possible under the previous government. For example, Max Goldt , Thomas Sabottka and Wiglaf Droste read in the bread factory. After a signature campaign in February 1990, the Weißensee Round Table also awarded the premises of the former bakery to the bread factory. In the middle of the year, the building was assigned to the Weißensee Cultural Office, and shortly before it was closed in autumn, the magistrate made DM 100,000 available for the cinema and theater. The theater at the top thus became the e. V. “Glass house. Association of users of the bread factory e. V. "
In February 1991, a cinema with 55 seats was set up in the former gallery space, for the technical equipment of which the municipal authorities mentioned above were used. His popularity boost owed the cinema in the bread factory, among others, the fact that it is the first East Berlin cinema was. Awards were made from the Federal Ministry of the Interior .
In April 1991 the gallery moved to the former horse stables. Since then she has been exhibiting young German and Eastern European photography. It quickly became known to an audience beyond Berlin as a photo gallery. Filmmaker Peter Greenaway opened an exhibition of his work here in October .
Although the number of visitors increased over the next few years, the number of employees decreased. The renovation of the rooms in 1994 had to be carried out and financed by the association alone. The construction projects for the next few years were related to the sanitary facilities and the foyer area and also had to be borne by the association. The work was completed in 1997. In 1996, together with the association, the Weißensee Cultural Office set up the “Theater Education Studio”, which introduced children and young people to the theater and produced some plays. A simultaneous attempt on the stage of the bread factory to gain a foothold in the cabaret scene turned out to be a failure. In 1997 the association opened the new stage of the bread factory, which had already proven to be profitable in early 1998. In the same year, however, the "Theater Pedagogical Studio" was closed because the last municipal employee had been transferred.
Current developments
After a renovation and redesign of the theater rooms, a new project began in August 1998, the “JugendMedienEtage”, which was jointly organized by the Weißensee Cultural Office and ProKultur gGmbH. This project was one of the most dynamic so far: It founded two school newspapers, a youth photo laboratory and, in June 1999, a youth internet café. The Glashaus e. V. was awarded the Berlin-Brandenburg Film Program Prize in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 for its outstanding cinema program.
The gallery was initially entrusted to four volunteers, then combined with the cinema and the film archive "ex.oriente.lux" to form the media area . (The film archive collects those art and artist films from the GDR that were made alongside the state film market.) A strict austerity program succeeded in stabilizing the budget. For its tenth anniversary, the bread factory was awarded the Freiherr vom Stein Prize from the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Hamburg in 2000. After the leaseholder of the café gave up in the same year, the Glashaus e. V. took over the rooms and began converting the bread factory into a bar.
The place in front of the bread factory was opened in 2002 at the request of Glashaus e. V. named Caligariplatz . The bread factory announced a competition among students from the University of the Arts , the Weissensee School of Art and the Technical University of Dresden to design the square, from which two Dresden students emerged as winners. Your design of a diamond-shaped checkerboard pattern has been registered with the Senate Building Administration and the Pankow Civil Engineering Office.
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 33 '9.54 " N , 13 ° 25' 49.17" E