Colosseum (cinema)
The Colosseum is a cinema in the Gleimviertel of the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg ( Pankow district ) on Schönhauser Allee at the corner of Gleimstrasse.
Part of the building was used as a shed for the Berlin tram in 1894 . Initially the horses were also accommodated here, after the switch to electric operation only buses were accommodated.
The conversion to a cinema took place in the early 1920s by Fritz Wilms according to a preliminary plan by Max Bischoff . The first movie theater opened at this location on September 12, 1924. It had 1000 seats for visitors who could experience silent film performances as well as variety events with orchestral accompaniment .
The cinema was closed during the Second World War ; the rooms were used as a hospital . After the end of the war, the building served as a warming hall in which cinema screenings were occasionally held. Subsequently, the venue of the Metropol Theater was set up here, as its building was destroyed in the war. After a renovation under the direction of Karl-August Borchardt , the cinema reopened on May 2, 1957. Until the establishment of Kino International in 1963, the Colosseum was the premiere cinema in East Berlin and thus in the entire GDR .
After the fall of the Wall in 1989, the state cinema was privatized by the Treuhandanstalt . The Berlin film producer Artur Brauner and the Sputnik Group acquired the cinema and the old bus depot buildings on the neighboring property in 1992. Since a thorough renovation in 1996–97, combined with a new building on both properties, the multiplex cinema now has 2800 seats in ten cinema halls. The cinema as a whole is a listed building.
From 1992 Sputnik Colosseum Betrieb KG took over management of the company. This was followed in 1997 by a joint operating company with Cinemaxx AG . After the termination by Cinemaxx AG, UCI took over the operation of the cinema on September 1, 2006 .
On May 22, 2020, the Colosseum filed for bankruptcy, which the provisional insolvency administrator explained with the more than two-month loss of sales due to the COVID-19 pandemic .
Web links
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List
- Colosseum at www.kinokompendium.de
- Excerpt from the book "Kulturverführer Berlin" ( Memento from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://www.berliner-kurier.de/kiez/im-berliner-traditions-kino-colosseum- geht-das-licht-aus- li.84862
- ↑ “Colosseum” cinema files for bankruptcy , deutschlandfunkkultur.de, published and accessed on May 29, 2020
Coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 52 ″ N , 13 ° 24 ′ 45 ″ E