Volksbildungsheim Frankfurt am Main

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“Metropolis” in the public education center

The Volksbildungsheim was an adult education building in Frankfurt am Main opposite the Eschenheimer Tower . The Theater am Turm was located here from 1963 to 1995 . Today the building is used under the name CineStar Metropolis as a multiplex cinema and event center in downtown Frankfurt am Main. The cinema halls are operated by the CineStar Group .

history

The building opened on February 1, 1908 . The client was the commercial association , which used the house as a community center . The architect was Wilhelm Helfrich . In addition to the association's premises, several shops, a restaurant and a café were housed in the house. Event rooms were already planned for this first use: the large hall offered space for 1400 people, the small hall 300 people.

During the First World War , the building was used as a military hospital and was then taken over by the city for 1.6 million marks, as the commercial association had since disbanded. In 1919, with the help of public and private donations, the house became the property of the Federation for Popular Education and reopened on October 5, 1919 as a people's education home . Donors included industrialists and bankers such as the director of Degussa Heinrich Roessler and the philanthropist Charles Hallgarten .

In addition to the eponymous educational events, the house was used for concerts and social events. It was also the seat of the public library.

After the National Socialists came to power , the Federation for Popular Education was brought into line and dissolved in 1936. The Volksbildungsheim, now called the Volksbildungsstätte Stadtmitte , continued to be operated by the organization Kraft durch Freude (KdF).

The extensive destruction of downtown Frankfurt by Allied bombing raids in World War II did not stop at the Volksbildungsheim either. The roof and large parts of the building were destroyed in the air raids on Frankfurt am Main in 1943 and 1944 . However, since the destruction was not as bad as in other large halls and theaters in Frankfurt, the decision was made as early as 1950 to protect the building from further destruction by the weather with a simple gable roof . In 1953 the building was rebuilt by the new owner Saalbau GmbH .

Inside, the building was refurbished to meet the requirements of the time. In addition to a large hall with 1,000 seats, teaching and administration rooms as well as three smaller halls with 180 seats each were available. In addition, the main office of the municipal public library was located here. In 1963, an extension was built on the rubble property adjacent to the north. Before the war, the Hoch Conservatory had been located here since 1888 , and since 1951 it has been given space again in the extension of the adult education center.

From 1953 on, the large hall of the Volksbildungsheim was the venue for the Rhein-Main state theater , which became a nationally known theater from 1963 under the name Theater am Turm (TAT). In 1966 the legendary public abuse by Peter Handke was premiered here under the direction of Claus Peymann ( Artistic Director 1965–1969) . In the seventies, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was director of the TAT for eight months. The performance of his 1974 play Der Müll, die Stadt und die Tod about the Frankfurt urban warfare was canceled after protests because the figure of the rich Jew used in it served anti-Semitic stereotypes . Fassbinder left the theater.

After a temporary closure in 1978/79, the TAT was rebuilt and reopened in 1980 with a new concept, but now without its own ensemble . Until 1986 it was a venue for free experimental groups and international artists such as the Vivienne Newport company , after which numerous international guest productions were created .

From 1986 onwards, more in-house productions were staged again under the dramaturgy of Tom Stromberg . In 1995 the TAT relocated to the Bockenheimer Depot .

Cinema center

In the 1990s, the city of Frankfurt sold the Volksbildungsheim to a private consortium with a leasehold contract . From 1998 to 2001 the people's education center was gutted and converted into the Metropolis cinema center with 12 halls and a total of 3,551 seats for 105 million marks . The planned opening on March 15, 2001 had to be postponed due to several construction defects. While the first two halls were able to open on April 12, 2001, the commissioning of the remaining halls was postponed by several months. The building is owned by Treuhand & Verwaltungs-GmbH und Co. Metropolis Premiumfilmpalast mbH , which leases the building to Greater Union Filmpalast GmbH , which operates under the brand name Cinestar , as part of the Australian Amalgamated Holdings Limited . The monthly rent is put at 250,000 euros. Other tenants are two restaurants on the ground floor and the Wernecke dance school on the top floor.

At the beginning of 2012 it became known that film distributors criticized the condition of the cinema center. The cost-covering operation is questioned.

Due to a defect in the central fire alarm system, the building supervision of the city of Frankfurt issued a provisional ban on the use of the Metropolis cinema center on February 28, 2012 . The operator announced in cooperation with the landlord to eliminate the defects as soon as possible. The reopening took place approx. 3 weeks after the defects had been eliminated.

Web links

Commons : Volksbildungsheim Frankfurt am Main  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Cinestar announces renovation of the Metropolis , February 29, 2012, Claus-Jürgen Göpfert, Frankfurter Rundschau, accessed on August 26, 2013
  2. ↑ Photo series Frankfurt - The History of the Metropolis ( Memento from May 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Frankfurter Rundschau, accessed on August 26, 2013
  3. ↑ Defects in fire protection in the Cinestar Metropolis - Metropolis cinema closed , February 28, 2012, Frankfurter Rundschau, accessed on August 26, 2013

Coordinates: 50 ° 7 ′ 6 ″  N , 8 ° 40 ′ 45 ″  E