Palace of Culture
In socialist and formerly socialist countries, the Kulturpalast was and is the name of representative buildings that were built to promote cultural purposes and were often equipped with facilities such as a cinema, theater, discotheque, restaurant, exhibition hall, library, sports facility and event hall.
Mostly built in capital cities , in the 1950s, under the influence of Stalinist architectural doctrine, they were often supposed to take over the function of the central, silhouette-defining high-rise building. A prime example of this is the Palace of Culture in Warsaw , which became a new landmark in the city that was completely destroyed by the Wehrmacht after the Second World War . Smaller institutions with this purpose are usually called Kulturhaus , but in some cases they were also called Kulturpalast.
The first culture palace of the GDR in the style of socialist classicism was built in 1950 on behalf of the SAG Wismut as the "culture palace of miners" in Chemnitz . The architects were Kurt Ritter , Adam Burger and Joachim Rackwitz . The Kulturpalast housed a theater hall with around 900 seats, a second large hall for dance events, a restaurant and a café, a library as well as a room for women, children, music and billiards. The listed building was about to be demolished by its current owner.
The Kulturpalast in Dresden , built between 1966 and 1969 by the architect Wolfgang Hänsch , can be classified as a culture and congress center with a large hall for concerts and congresses, a chamber theater and several meeting rooms. It has been a listed building since 2008.
The Palace of the Republic in Berlin, which was demolished in 2008, with several halls and restaurants, had many elements of a culture palace and was also designed and used as a parliament building.
Other well-known cultural palaces are:
- Kulturpalast Bitterfeld
- Kulturpalast Hamburg
- Palace of Culture in Moscow ,
- Nationalities Palace of Culture , Beijing
- People's Palace of Culture , Pyongyang
- Palace of Culture in Prague
- Culture and Science Palace in Riga
- National Palace of Culture (Sofia)
- Palace of Culture (Tirana)
- Palace of Culture in Warsaw