Mestlin cultural center

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House of Culture (2013)

The Mestlin cultural center in the Ludwigslust-Parchim district was built between 1952 and 1957. The Kulturhaus at Marx-Engels-Platz 1 is a protected architectural monument. It has the third largest stage in Mecklenburg after Rostock and Schwerin.

history

House of culture under construction (1955)
Side view of the Mestlin cultural center

The idea of ​​a culture house goes back to the former Volkshaus. It served the gatherings of the workers, but also the parties, associations and other groups of the population. The GDR culture house, on the other hand, saw education and upbringing, but also the entertainment and sociability of the population as a superficial task. How seriously the SED took the task of building a cultural center can be made clear by the program on cultural work in the countryside , which it introduced to the state parliaments as a resolution in 1949. 1953 were 343 machine rental station -Kulturhäuser under construction, of which 102 alone in today's Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Development and planning

Mestlin, with its 700 inhabitants at the time, was one of the first three places in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania to be developed as a model socialist village on behalf of the GDR government. The proximity to the district town of Parchim and the district town of Schwerin may have been decisive for Mestlin. In July 1952 the Second Party Conference of the SED decided to build the foundations of socialism. At that time, the Bauakademie with its President Kurt Liebknecht , who lived in the Soviet Union from 1931 to 1947, played an essential role in the uniform development and planning of the culture houses .

The ideal planning of the new village center of Mestlin in the then Parchim district is to be understood as a total work of art of socialist realism. In addition to residential buildings, a school building, a preschool facility (crèche and kindergarten), sales facilities with a restaurant, the municipal council building with post office and savings bank, as well as a rural outpatient clinic as a health facility and a sports field are grouped around a central square. However, the center is the 1952 to 1957 according to plans the Schwerin architect Erich Bentrup , Günter Kawan and Heinrich Handorf built community center. The building combines the progressive architectural conceptions of the GDR with stylistic components of the pre-war buildings.

It was built in the style of a socialist neoclassicism , also known as socialist classicism or Stalin baroque, as a two-story plastered building with a hipped roof . Four porticos shape the culture house and communicate with the surrounding buildings. The portico facing the central square, which protrudes far from the facade, is characterized as the most important by means of a triangular gable. Twelve window axes and the central projection with an outside staircase structure the 57 meter long main facade. The other three facades are made more restrained by portici. Multiple conversions have left little of the original room structure and furnishings. Vera Kopetz's large mural Fruits of Mecklenburg by Vera Kopetz in the foyer was also not preserved. The planned construction costs of 1.2 million marks were calculated too low and, at 3.5 million marks, almost tripled. As a result, the completion of the planned opening date June 30, 1953 to 1957. The opening ceremony took place on October 19, 1957. Remaining work lasted until 1959.

use

Speech by Bernhard Quandt on the first youth consecration in 1963 with the Parchim People's Police choir and GDR television

The cultural center with the surrounding ensemble of buildings has been a listed building since 1977 and was classified as a monument of national importance in 2011 because of its uniqueness. Until the political change in 1989/90, the cultural center was the cultural center of the community and the region. Over 50,000 people per year attended the events in the Kulturhaus. There were working groups, dance and entertainment events for all age groups, company meetings, courses, conferences and exhibitions. The modernly equipped cultural center with restaurant, hall, lecture hall and many ancillary rooms was available to visitors until 1990. According to the spatial plan, this building was also geared towards the large hall of considerable size, the heart of the cultural center. The hall was even equipped with its own stage including an orchestra pit and a film projection system.

After the political change, it was used as a large discotheque for a short time and has been empty since 1996. The last operator left a completely neglected and cleared cultural center. Many furnishings were stolen or destroyed.

A citizens' initiative and two associations have renovated parts of the building in cooperation with the municipality in recent years. Exhibitions and other cultural events are organized. The first support association, which existed from 1997 to 2003, carried out, among other things, the roof renovation in 2000 with the help of monument protection funds. Since July 2008 the association Denkmal Kultur Mestlin e. V. to maintain the cultural center and the surrounding building ensemble. In 2010, the Friends' Association leased the cultural center and in 2011 it was recognized by the Federal Republic as a “monument of national importance”. On November 13, 2017, the Memorial Culture Mestlin e. V. awarded the "German Prize for Monument Protection" for its commitment.

  • Large hall with design from the time it was used as a disco

  • foyer

  • Renovated small hall / club restaurant (so-called "rubber hall")

literature

  • Serafim Polenz : New building in the country, the culture houses in Mestlin and Murchin. In: Monuments of the socialist construction. 1979, pp. 79-83.
  • Dirk Handorf: hoards of order and size. Culture houses of the fifties in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In: Monument protection and preservation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Issue 3, Schwerin 1996, pp. 40-44.
  • Michael-Günther Bölsche: Where there was a lot of light, there is a lot of shadow today. 40 years Culture House Mestlin . Gänsebrunnenverlag, Bützow 1998 [not evaluated]
  • Christiane Rossner: Brigade festival and women farmers' conference. The cultural center in the model socialist village of Mestlin . In: Monuments . Magazine for Monument Culture in Germany , Volume 22, No. 3, June 2012, pp. 8–15, ISSN  0941-7125
  • Dieter Pocher: Mestlin - The socialist example village in Mecklenburg . In: Architecture and Urban Development in the Southern Baltic Sea Region between 1936 and 1980 , Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-931836-74-6
  • Horst Ende: The example village of Mestlin. In: Forms of government shape architectural styles. 2006, pp. 95-98.
  • Heidrun Derks: Kulturhaus Mestlin, a monument on the way to the future. In: City Talks. Volume 20, 2014, pp. 28-31.
  • Peter Intelmann: State theater in the village - the huge cultural center of the GDR model village Mestlin has remained - and is to be saved In: Lübecker Nachrichten 10./11. March 2019, p. 35.
  • Katja Haescher: A house, a village, a plan. The Mestlin cultural center was once supposed to be the heart of a model socialist village - and is flourishing today. In: Magazin Journal Eins. No. 11, November 2019, p. 32.
  • Friedemann Schreiter : Mestlin as a model village - from the monastery to the "Stalinallee of the villages". Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2017. ISBN 978-3-86153-948-3

Web links

Commons : Kulturhaus Mestlin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Intelmann, Lübecker Nachrichten of 10/11. March 2019, p. 35
  2. ↑ Dirk Handorf: Hoards of order and size. 1996, p. 40.
  3. ^ Hain, Schroedter, Stroux: The salons of the socialist. Culture houses in the GDR. Berlin 1996, p. 125.
  4. ↑ Jörn Düwel: Building art ahead! Architecture and urban planning in the Soviet Zone / GDR. Berlin 1995, p. 269.
  5. ↑ Dirk Handorf: Hoards of order and size. 1996, p. 43.
  6. ↑ Katja Haescher: A house, a village, a plan. Magazin Journal Eins, No. 11, November 2019, p. 32.
  7. ↑ a b Association is committed to the cultural center in the former model village of Mestlin  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 296 kB), hinterland-marktplatz.de@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hinterland-marktplatz.de  
  8. ^ Peter Intelmann, Lübecker Nachrichten of 10/11. March 2019, p. 35
  9. ↑ Petra Eggert: Report on the Rostock conference “Alles Platte oder was? Architecture in the north of the GDR as a cultural heritage. ”20. – 22. October 2016. In: The Preservation of Historic Monuments Berlin 2017, Issue 1, pp. 35–38.
  10. ↑ Katja Haescher: House of Opportunities. The German Prize for Monument Protection is intended to stimulate the development of the Mestlin cultural center - this is what the association that has received it hopes. SVZ, Mecklenburg-Magazin, December 8, 2017, p. 24.

Coordinates: 53 ° 34 ′ 47 "  N , 11 ° 55 ′ 35"  E