Maison de France

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Maison de France
Maison de France Kurfürstendamm 211

Maison de France Kurfürstendamm 211

Data
place Berlin
builder Wilhelm Klopsch (1897)
architect Hans Semrau (1948)
Client N. Knopf (1897),
French military government (1948)
Construction year 1897
Coordinates 52 ° 30 '8.2 "  N , 13 ° 19' 29.7"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 30 '8.2 "  N , 13 ° 19' 29.7"  E
particularities
Reconstruction: 1926/1927
Reconstruction: 1949–1950

The Maison de France opened in 1950 as a French cultural center in West Berlin . As an important step towards establishing new Franco-German relations after the Second World War , France created a place for intellectual exchange and political understanding. As one of the first buildings to be restored after the war, it is an important architectural monument and was included in the Berlin list of monuments as the 1000th object .

History of the building at Kurfürstendamm 211

House Scharlachberg , ca. 1935

The building at Kurfürstendamm 211 was built in 1897 as a residential and commercial building for the rentier N. Knopf according to plans by the master builder Wilhelm Klopsch in the historicist style . For 1899, nine tenants were listed in the Berlin address book. "Attorney J. Dzialosczynski, Rankestrasse 24" was given as the owner and was recorded (in different spellings) until 1925. In 1926, “L. Bernstein, manufacturer ”, and“ A. Punitzer, Kaufmann, Rankestrasse 5 ”. The new owners were faced with a major challenge as the roof and facade were damaged. The architectural office of Hans and Wassili Luckhardt and Alfons Anker were commissioned to convert the facade in 1926 , who converted the building in the New Objectivity style. In doing so, they removed the roof structures, many wall projections and cornices and connected the balconies with continuous horizontal strips. The ground floor and the first floor were converted into shops with fully glazed shop window facades on the ground floor. Last but not least, this enabled the installation of neon advertising, which gave the house the name Haus Scharlachberg . At the same time, the three architects rebuilt the Chrysler house on the corner plot of Kurfürstendamm / Knesebeckstraße, whereby the changes there were more extensive and were not limited to the facade.

At the time of the renovation in 1927, the owner “S. Benima (abroad) "called. He obviously sold the house after the National Socialists " seized power " , and the Bayerische Vereinsbank was now registered as the owner . Furthermore, in that year until 1939, the "Standesgemeinschaft Berlin deutscher Apotheker" appeared as a tenant, which later became the "Deutsche Apothekerschaft, Reichs Geschäftsstelle". In 1939 the "Finanzamt Teltow" was named as the owner, and from 1940 to 1943 the Reich Ministry of Finance . It had thus become imperial property. As of 1938, the new tenant was “Adler am Kurfürstendamm”, an automobile business owned by Adlerwerke .

During the Second World War, the house, especially the wing on Uhlandstrasse , was badly damaged by incendiary bombs in air raids by the Allies , so that only the ground floor, parts of the upper floors and the surrounding walls have been preserved.

The building called Maison de France

Rebuilding the house

After the end of the war, the British military government confiscated the house, which was now in the British sector , in order to use it as a bar, cabaret and hotel. In 1948 she left it to the French military government for the reconstruction and the establishment of a cultural center, which was to be built in the center of West Berlin , since the French sector was not centrally located enough. The architect Hans Semrau was commissioned to carry out the renovation ; in 1948, during the Berlin blockade, he began planning and carrying out the necessary demolition and security work on the ruins. Reconstruction could begin immediately after the end of the blockade in May 1949.

architecture

It is partly a renovation, partly a completely new building (on Uhlandstrasse): In the Kurfürstendamm wing and in the corner area, not only the wooden beam ceilings that had been destroyed on the upper floors were replaced by a layer of steel girders with prefabricated concrete ceiling panels. The destroyed and cleared roof structure is replaced by a flat sloping roof ceiling made of steel girders and prefabricated concrete ceiling panels, which functioned as a pent roof behind the high parapet . On the ground floor on the street side towards Kurfürstendamm and in the corner area, all remaining load-bearing walls were replaced by steel supports. This required extensive and expensive bracing in order to be able to install beams and columns on the ground and first floors, especially in the foyer area (in the corner building). The wing on Uhlandstrasse, which was most severely damaged and which was to house the cinema , was completely demolished and replaced by a new steel frame.

The steel skeleton was lined in the plane of the outer walls. The outer walls in the new part show, as in the old part, strictly structured perforated window facades, for reasons of uniform design.

In contrast to the facade design of the 1920s, the facades are now completely flat and flat, the perforated windows of the four upper floors are simply cut into the facade surfaces, but not combined to form ribbon windows, but rather joined together to form large closed figures. The old window openings on the corners of the building are now closed. This led to the clear order and calm structure of the three individual street facades. The windowing is arranged symmetrically in each large figure of the three facades: This becomes particularly clear in the windowing of the corner building, where a wide four-wing window door on each upper floor is flanked on each side by a narrow two- wing window door . The French doors are fenced off with bronze railing . The French windows are a quote from the French French windows.

In the Kurfürstendamm façade, two wide five-wing windows in the middle of each floor are accompanied on both sides by a narrow three-wing window. This motif is repeated on Uhlandstrasse: Here three wide four-winged windows are flanked by narrow three-winged windows in the middle of each floor; At the transition to the corner building, however, a small asymmetry was required: instead of one narrow window, two are arranged on each floor. Inside, it is an important testimony to the architecture of the 1950s , which is manifested in the curved shapes and the light architecture.

opening

On April 21, 1950, the French city commander General Jean Ganeval opened the new cultural center as a Franco-German meeting place in the presence of the High Commissioner for Germany André François-Poncet and the Lord Mayor Ernst Reuter . The French consulate general (moved to the French embassy on Pariser Platz in 2002 ), the Institut français Berlin, the Cinema Paris , a library with French literature, various shops, a bar, the Air France travel agency and a restaurant were located here. The Boris Vian hall is on the fourth floor and is used for representative events and filming. At the opening of the cinema, the film La beauté du diable by René Clair was shown in the presence of the actor Gérard Philipe .

1983 bomb attack

On August 25, 1983, the house was bombed and the cyclist Michael Haritz died, who was about to hand over a petition to the French Consulate General with his peace group “Fasting for Life”. Another 23 people were injured. The bomb was laid by the Lebanese Mustafa Ahmed el-Sibai, who acted on behalf of the Armenian terrorist group " Asala ". The attack was planned by the assassin Johannes Weinrich , who was sentenced to life imprisonment for it in Berlin in 2000. Weinrich was considered to be the right hand of the terrorist Carlos , who also wanted to free his girlfriend Magdalena Kopp with the attack . As it turned out later, the attack was carried out with the support of the Stasi . The former lieutenant colonel of the MfS Helmut Voigt was sentenced to four years imprisonment for aiding and abetting murder.

Reopened in 1985

After repairing the damage and thorough restoration, the building was officially reopened in 1985 by Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand . In 1992 the Federal Republic of Germany sold it to the French state for 60 million marks (adjusted for inflation in today's currency: around 47 million euros).

In the 2000s, celebrities like Élisabeth and Robert Badinter , Benoîte Groult , Serge and Beate Klarsfeld , but also the graphic designer Miss.Tic or Plantu , the cartoonist of Le Monde, were here . Alain Finkielkraut debated here with Peter Sloterdijk .

Since it was founded in 1950, the building has housed the Institut français Berlin, whose task is to promote the French language and culture in Berlin and Brandenburg . In addition to language courses and the organization of Franco-German activities, this includes a large number of cultural events. Art exhibitions, discussion evenings, music events and activities for children take place on an ongoing basis. The actors and directors are often present at the film events. Whenever Gérard Depardieu , Diane Kruger or Isabelle Huppert presented a film here, it was always a big event. Before the fall of the Wall , it was a place for West Berlin Francophiles to meet personalities such as Eugène Ionesco , René Clair , Alain Robbe-Grillet , Gisèle Freund and dozens of other personalities who gave lectures in French. The library and media center are on the first floor and offer a wide range of French books, comics, CDs, newspapers and specialist magazines.

The Bureau du Théatre has also been located here since 1995. It coordinates and supports the theater-political activities of the French cultural institutes based in Germany.

Cinema Paris

The Cinema Paris has existed since the house opened in 1950 and is one of the few remaining Kurfürstendamm cinemas. The program focuses on French productions and European cinematography, most of which are shown in the original version with subtitles . The cinema has been operated by the Yorck Group since 1994.

Brasserie Le Paris restaurant

Brasserie Le Paris restaurant

A restaurant has existed here since it opened in 1950, but it closed in the 1990s, so the rooms were unused for 20 years. In 2011 the restaurant reopened at the historic location. It offers authentic French cuisine and a typically French ambience on Kurfürstendamm. During the warm season, tables are also set up in front of the restaurant.

Closure plans

In April 2013 it was announced that the Institut français Berlin would be relocated to the embassy on Pariser Platz by 2015 and that the house would be sold for economic reasons. As early as April 2013, the institution was placed on the Culture Red List by the German Cultural Council and classified as threatened with closure (Category 1). The hazard was lifted in February 2014 (Category 4).

There was considerable opposition to the planned closure from the Berlin population and from employees who initiated an online petition against the closure, which was supported by more than 14,000 people by the end of December 2013. At the end of January 2014, the French government decided not to sell the building on Kurfürstendamm and to continue the cultural center at its previous location.

literature

  • Dirk Dorsemagen: Office and commercial building facades from the 1950s. Conservation problems using the example of West Berlin . Berlin February 17, 2004, p. 361–362 ( opus.kobv.de [PDF; accessed December 15, 2013] dissertation at the TU Berlin).
  • Karl-Heinz Metzger, Ulrich Dunker: The Kurfürstendamm - the life and myth of the boulevard in 100 years of German history . Ed .: District Office Wilmersdorf of Berlin. Konopka, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-924812-13-6 , pp. 147, 200-201, 208 .
  • Birgit Jochens, Sonja Miltenberger: From house to house on Kurfürstendamm - history and stories about Berlin's first boulevard . Ed .: Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf of Berlin. 2011th edition. text.verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-938414-31-6 , pp. 206-207 .
  • A bomb for the beloved. In: Berliner Zeitung , October 18, 2013

Web links

Commons : Maison de France  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kurfürstendamm 211 . In: Address book for Berlin and its suburbs , 1899, part 3, p. 319.
  2. ↑ Kurfürstendamm 211 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1926, part 4, p. 551.
  3. ↑ Kurfürstendamm 211 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1927, part 4, p. 554.
  4. ↑ Kurfürstendamm 211 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1934, part 4, p. 1087.
  5. ^ Pharmaceutical newspaper from September 1935, online ( Memento from December 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF)
  6. ↑ Kurfürstendamm 211 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1939, part, p. 1117.
  7. ↑ Kurfürstendamm 211 . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1940, part 4, p. 1107.
  8. ↑ Dirk Dorsemagen: Office and commercial building facades from the 1950s, conservational problems using the example of West Berlin . Berlin February 17, 2004, p. 361–362 ( opus.kobv.de [PDF; accessed on December 6, 2013] Dissertation at the TU Berlin).
  9. ^ History. (No longer available online.) Institut français Berlin, archived from the original on December 21, 2013 ; Retrieved December 15, 2013 . .
  10. ^ Salle Boris Vian. (No longer available online.) KD 211: musique, archived from the original on December 21, 2013 ; Retrieved December 15, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kd211.de
  11. ^ Gérard Philippe . In: Der Spiegel . No. 17 , 1950 ( online ).
  12. ↑ attack cleared up . In: Der Spiegel . No. 7 , 1991 ( online ).
  13. ↑ Because of the bomb attack: Lifelong for Johannes Weinrich. In: Spiegel Online . January 17, 2000, accessed December 15, 2013 .
  14. ↑ Jörn Hasselmann: In the service of the jackal. In: Der Tagesspiegel. August 25, 2008, accessed December 15, 2013 .
  15. ↑ From hand to hand . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1994 ( online ).
  16. ↑ Bundestag printed matter 12/1008. (PDF)
  17. ↑ Frederic Lemaitre: Berlin Défend son français village. In: Le Monde . November 15, 2013, accessed December 15, 2013 (French).
  18. ↑ Cinema Paris. Cinema Paris, accessed December 15, 2013 .
  19. ^ Cinema Paris berlin.de
  20. ^ Brasserie Le Petit Paris. Le Petit Paris GmbH & Co. KG, accessed December 15, 2013 .
  21. ↑ Cay Dobberke and Constance Frey: City-West im Wandel: Au revoir, Kurfürstendamm. In: Der Tagesspiegel . April 24, 2013, accessed December 15, 2013 .
  22. ↑ Politics & Culture Newspaper of the German Cultural Council 3 | 13 ( Memento from January 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF), accessed on January 15, 2014
  23. ^ Red list of threatened cultural institutions March / April 2014: New negative reports from Berlin, Leipzig and Schleswig . ( Memento from February 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) German Cultural Council, press release from February 25, 2014; Retrieved February 26, 2014
  24. ^ Petition to prevent the closure of the Maison de France
  25. ↑ The “Maison de France” cultural center remains on Kurfürstendamm . In: Berliner Morgenpost , January 28, 2014.