Goethe House (New York)

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Goethe House, 1014 5th Avenue
Entrance portal of the Goethe House, 1014, Fifth Avenue

The Goethe House (also Goethe House ) in New York is an American-German cultural center that was founded by a private association. It is linked to the Goethe Institute and is financed by the German Foreign Office .

history

The Goethe House in New York was founded as Goethe House - The American-German Cultural Center and Library on April 12, 1955. The non-profit educational corporation was initiated by American personalities interested in Germany, including Lucius D. Clay , John J. McCloy , Georg Shuster and James Bryant Conant . On the German side, Ambassador Karl Heinrich Knappstein and Consul General Georg Federer were involved. President of the society was Conant, chairman McCloy.

The first seat of the Goethe House was a "Goethe Floor", it was on the 9th floor of the building 120 East 56th, on the east side of Manhattan , in the vicinity of representative skyscrapers. It was opened on April 12, 1957 and consisted of reading and lounge rooms. The books of the library were made available by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels .

1014, Fifth Avenue

Metropolitan Museum (left). On the right edge with the green copper roof: the Goethe House.

Since 1961 the Goethe House Corporation owned the narrow, six-story, palace-like building 1014, Fifth Avenue, which the Federal Republic of Germany bought in 1960 . It was built in 1906/1907 as an elegant town house with an articulated, light limestone facade on the east side of Central Park opposite the Metropolitan Museum . The builder was James W. Gerard , American ambassador in Berlin, the plans came from the architects Welch, Smith & Provot . Inside it contains - even today - typical wood paneling, elaborate, historical stucco work , as well as parquet and oak doors. It is a listed building. The higher right house next door was built in 1910 to a design by McKim, Mead, and White . The architect Philip Johnson referred to this design in 1978 for the construction of the building on the left, 1001 Fifth Avenue.

The Goethe House was opened on February 6, 1961 with Faust. A tragedy inaugurated in a guest performance by Gustaf Gründgens and many prominent guests. Hans Egon Holthusen became the first program director in the new house . As early as March 16, 1961, the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Willy Brandt, gave a highly acclaimed speech in the Goethe House in which he called for support for the divided city . In 1969, the Goethe-Haus was integrated into the network of Goethe-Instituts , based in Munich, under director Peter Stadelmeyer . The founding organization remained involved in an advisory capacity. During the tenure of director Christoph Wecker from 1975 to 1986, the program design changed from individual to thematically related events, starting with Berlin now 1977, followed by Dada , the topic of German Expressionism and the presentation of German culture in the nineteenth century in 1981.

Numerous German-language writers such as Uwe Johnson and Ingeborg Bachmann appeared at readings. In 1983 a panel discussion with the title “The responsibility of the writer in a threatened world” took place, in which Fritz J. Raddatz , Joyce Carol Oates , John Irving and Günter Grass were involved. In the same year the Goethe House changes its name to Goethe-Institut, New York.

The building, which stands on 446 m² of land, was completely renovated between April 1989 and May 1991 by the architects Peter Englert & Associates and adapted to the technical requirements. The former library has been expanded into an auditorium with modern audio-visual installations and lighting technology. After the renovation, the usable area of the Goethe House was 2126 m². In addition to the auditorium, the new headquarters had space for the extensive library with reading rooms as well as rooms for administration, for art exhibitions, readings and for music and film events.

The house worked bilingual from the start to familiarize the “American intelligentsia” with German culture. The audience at the events initially included numerous Germans who had emigrated from National Socialist Germany and lived in New York. The events were mostly carried out in cooperation with local partners. The German American Partnership Program (GAPP) of the Goethe House organized the student exchange between secondary schools in both countries.

In 2009, the areas of the Goethe-Institut were reorganized and divided into different buildings. The library and administration were moved to 72 Spring Street, the Wyoming Building, 5 East 3 Street was available for events, and the exhibition rooms are located at 38 Ludlow Street as the Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 .

In December 2014 the Goethe-Institut moved to 30 Irving Place where a combined room is available for the library and for events. For the first time in its history, the Goethe-Institut New York is offering language courses.

The building on Fifth Avenue is currently empty.

Exhibitions (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Atlantic monthly , Volume 199, published by Atlantic Monthly Co., 1957, p. 189
  2. ^ Deutsche Rundschau , Baden-Baden, Issue 1, 1957, p. 557
  3. ↑ Thilo Koch : Goethe in New York - Mephisto and Gretchen fascinated the Americans. In: Die Zeit , No. 8/1961
  4. ^ Sabine Lietzmann: The Goethe House. Anniversary in New York . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of May 22, 1982, No. 117, p. 23
  5. ↑ Important archived data from the Goethe Institute
  6. ^ German cultural work in New York . In: Zeitwende , die neue Furche, Volume 34, Issues 1-6, Hanseatisches Druck- und Verlagshaus, 1963, pp. 142 ff
  7. ↑ Anita M. Mallinckrodt: The self-portrayal of the two German states abroad: "Image education" as an instrument of foreign policy . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne, 1980, ISBN 978-3-8046-8569-7 , p. 124 ff.
  8. ↑ Thomas E. Schmidt: A German haunted castle . In: Die Zeit , No. 24/2011.
  9. ^ Die Welt: "Germany lets residence in a prime location gather dust". December 12, 2015
  10. ^ Sarah Corona: Elias Wessel. May 16, 2017. Retrieved May 29, 2019 .
  11. ↑ EXHIBITION: Elias Wessel: Stuck Together Pieces! - 1014 | Space for Ideas | New York City. Retrieved December 4, 2019 (American English).

Coordinates: 40 ° 46 ′ 45.1 ″  N , 73 ° 57 ′ 42.7 ″  W.