Craftsmen's Club House

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Main entrance of the craftsmen's association

The Handwerkervereinhaus is a brick building built in 1904/1905 in the courtyard of Sophienstrasse 18 in Berlin-Mitte . It gained historical importance through its use as a location for political events of the German labor movement . Between 1950 and 1990 the premises were used as a theater workshop for the Maxim Gorki Theater . Since 1996 the former craftsmen's association has housed the free theater Sophiensaele and, together with the front building, is completely under monument protection.

history

The house of the Berliner Handwerkerverein in Sophienstrasse 15 in 1865

The craftsmen's association, founded in 1844, had a new building built as a club house in place of an old building on the site of Sophienstrasse 15 in 1864, based on designs by the architects Bernhard Kolscher and Heinrich Lauenburg . The meeting rooms were named "Sophiensäle" after the street. Here, in 1874, the first unification of two Berlin workers' organizations - the Lassalleans and the Eisenacher - took place with strong participation .

When the first club house was severely damaged in 1904 when the Wertheim Group built a department store on a neighboring property, it had to be closed. The Wertheim Group then bought land from the craftsmen's association. With the purchase price, the association's board of directors was able to acquire two plots of land in Sophienstrasse 17 and 18, which were already built on with residential buildings and side wings. First, the craftsmen had a passageway inserted in the front building and a hall building with several large rooms built on the rear area based on plans by architects Joseph Fraenkel and Theodor Kampffmeyer (1856–1913). The meeting places offered space for up to 3000 people and became known as the craftsmen's club house .

A plaque on the craftsmen's association reminds of the historical importance of the building as a location for political events

The halls of the club house also served as a place for political gatherings - even after the Prussian association and assembly rights were abolished in 1918 after the November Revolution and political gatherings in the open air were permitted again. This offer was used particularly intensively by the Berlin labor movement. The memorial plaque on the Handwerkervereinhaus reminds us that Karl Liebknecht called for a fight in the revolution of 1918, Wilhelm Pieck spoke here in the same year at the first public meeting of the Spartakusbund , the house in November 1920 was the meeting place for the 5th party congress of the KPD (on which the merger with the left wing of the USPD was decided) and in 1928 the union of proletarian revolutionary writers was founded here. In addition to Karl Liebknecht and Wilhelm Pieck, Erich Mühsam and Clara Zetkin also spoke at political events in the Handwerkervereinhaus.

During the National Socialist era , the craftsmen's association was banned and there was a labor camp in the building complex .

In the GDR , the building was used by the Maxim Gorki Theater as a workshop. When Sophienstrasse was historically reconstructed between 1981 and 1987 in preparation for Berlin's 750th anniversary, the craftsmen's association was not included. After the fall of the Wall , the premises were empty for a few years and in 1995 the Berlin Senate was looking for investors and a usage concept. The ownership structure could not even be clarified until 1999.

Four artists were selected from the applicants who wanted to preserve the building complex and revive it as a venue: Sasha Waltz , Jochen Sandig , Jo Fabian and Dirk Cieslak . They were given the right to use the court building complex and founded the free theater Sophiensaele , the name was derived from history. They used rooms in the Palace of the Republic as the venue for their first productions until the new venue was ready.

After extensive renovation of the craftsmen's club house with funds from the Hauptstadtkulturfonds, it was reopened in 1997 with the world premiere of the play Allee der Kosmonauten by Sasha Waltz. The venue and the management are now known far beyond Berlin. They are supported with funds from the Berlin budget (for example, 716.00 euros were named for 2003).

The transverse building in the courtyard with the large assembly hall in 1999

architecture

The Handwerkervereinhaus is a building complex of five wings with an H-shaped floor plan on the area between Sophienstrasse and Gipsstrasse. The house has 91 rooms, including the corridors, storage rooms, the bowling alley in the basement and the coal cellar. The large ballroom is located on the first floor of the building and extends with the entrance hall, today's foyer, through the entire floor (located in the "footbridge" of the H). The lavishly designed double portal adorned with colored terracottas leads to it in Sophienstrasse. The passage is arched in the shape of a barrel , bears the masonry inscription "Berliner Handwerker Verein" above the green and white decoration and a medallion with a symbolic handshake above the central support column .

The individual wings of the courtyard buildings, made of bricks, are faced with yellow and red clinker bricks and sparingly decorated with ribbons and color changes. Large arched windows allow enough daylight to enter the rooms. Another passage leads through the transverse building to the second courtyard, which is connected to Gipsstraße.

Web links

Commons : Handwerkervereinshaus Berlin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Architectural ensemble Sophienstrasse 18, residential houses, 1852, extensions in 1861 and 1864; Craftsmen's association with hall, 1905 by Joseph Fraenkel and Theodor Kampffmeyer
  2. ^ Inge Kiessig: Unification frenzy in the Sophiensaal. Tribune series: Berlin street stories (5) from October 10, 1983
  3. ^ Association Höfe in the Spandauer Vorstadt , accessed on April 9, 2011
  4. ↑ Printed matter 15/3626 - II of the German Bundestag - 15th electoral term. (PDF; 685 kB) p. 11; Retrieved April 9, 2011
  5. ↑ Alexandra Maringer: Investigations and considerations for the renovation of the Sophiensäle. (Diploma thesis; PDF; 8.3 MB) December 2001, archived from the original on November 6, 2013 ; accessed on January 15, 2016 .
  6. ^ A "privatization cadastre" on Berlin's 2003 budget (PDF; 861 kB), accessed on April 9, 2011
  7. ↑ Details derived from photos from 1999 and taken from the views on google earth and google street view.

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 32.2 "  N , 13 ° 24 ′ 4"  E