Weimarhalle
The Weimarhalle , today the congress center weimarhalle , is an event building in Weimar . It houses the largest hall in the city. Its appearance today is determined by the shell limestone facade and the adjoining Weimarhallenpark. The historic Weimarhalle from 1931 was demolished in 1997 and replaced by the current building in 1999.
history
The original Weimarhalle was built in 1931 in just 15 months of construction according to the designs of Max and Günther Vogeler in the New Objectivity style, directly behind the Bertuchhaus , today's city museum in Froriepschen Garten . Weimar-Halle Aktiengesellschaft was founded in 1925 to finance the largest hall . On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on March 12, 1932, the Weimarhalle was inaugurated with a “memorial service for the German Empire”.
The National Socialists used the Weimarhalle as the venue for their mass events. Even before the NSDAP came to power on March 15, 1932, Adolf Hitler appeared here at a mass rally of the NSDAP Gau Thuringia. But numerous cultural events also took place.
After 1945 the Weimarhalle was a replacement venue for the destroyed German National Theater until 1948. Afterwards it was the scene of numerous major political events. In 1946, Heinz Rühmann appeared there in the guest performance "The model husband".
In 1952, the Soviet Army stationed in Weimar took over the Weimar Hall as the "House of Soviet Officers", and the adjacent park became the "Park Doma Officierow" ("Парк Дома офицеров"). This meant that the cultural site and the park were no longer freely accessible to Weimar's citizens. On February 21, 1974, the new building of the House of Soviet Officers (officially House of Officers of the Soviet Army ("Дом офицеров Советской Армии")) in Weimar-Nord in direct proximity to the barracks of the Red Army (previously barracks of the Wehrmacht ) at the Lützendorfer Strasse opened, making the Weimarhalle again a general public event and concert venue after 22 years.
From 1955 to 1987 the party congresses of the GDR party, the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD), which is mostly preferred by craftsmen , took place in the Weimarhalle .
From 1974 to 1996 the Weimarhalle was run as a culture and congress center under the responsibility of the city. Outstanding was the event series “Youth Meeting” in the 1980s, which always guaranteed sold-out events for young people with numerous international and GDR bands. Lectures, conferences and congresses as well as guest performances, increasingly with international artists - such as concerts by Joan Jett , Roger Chapman , the Austrian band Erste Allgemeine Verunsicherung and, in 1987, by Herman van Veen - and other social events were part of the program.
New building
In 1995 an international competition for the renovation of the Weimarhalle was announced. In 1997 construction was halted due to serious structural defects. The city council decided - although the Weimarhalle was under monument protection - the demolition and the new building in the same place and in a similar cubature according to the drafts of the architects Gerkan, Marg and Partners . The new building is designed to be open and transparent to allow a view of the Weimarhallenpark. The new weimarhalle congress center was inaugurated on June 26, 1999, when Weimar was a European capital of culture. Gmp received the “Honor Award 2001” from the United States Institute for Theater Technology (USITT) for the architecture of the Weimarhalle.
A major difference between the old and the new Weimarhalle is that now - unlike in the previous building - the main stage is on the opposite side of the building from the main entrance. The main hall is now also windowless - it was architecturally designed to achieve the best possible acoustics .
description
Today the Weimarhalle is operated as a congress and cultural center by the weimar GmbH Gesellschaft für Wirtschaftsförderung, Kongress- und Tourismusservice mbH. Every year more than 200 events take place on 270 days, including international congresses, meetings, seminars and cultural events. These include concerts, shows, galas and social highlights in the city of Weimar. The Weimarhalle is the venue for the symphony concerts of the Staatskapelle Weimar.
A highlight since the reopening of the Weimarhalle was the Petersburg Dialogue , in which Russian President Vladimir Putin, Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Mikhail Gorbachev took part as heads of the German-Russian forum from April 8-10, 2002. In the immediate vicinity, the Klassik Stiftung Weimar built the new building for the Bauhaus Museum Weimar, which was inaugurated in April 2019 .
capacities
The large hall has 1,200 seats, the small hall 240 seats, and the adjacent seminar building a total of up to 390 seats. Generous foyers and flexible hall walls allow different room concepts.
literature
- Gundula Michalski and Walter Steiner: The Weimarhalle. Construction and impact history. Weimarer Schriften 1994, publisher Stadtmuseum Weimar, ISBN 3-910053-24-6 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ “The architectural developments and architectural theoretical debates since the turn of the century did not pass Weimar without a trace, Lehrmann and Vogeler, and to a limited extent Flemming, were also briefly influenced by this, although they clung to their fundamental traditional values. One example is the new building of the Schillerschule, with which the municipal building councilor Lehrmann adopted modern design principles for a new public building. Another example was the “Weimarhalle” until it was demolished in 1998. The ideas competition launched by the Weimarhalle AG supervisory board in 1925/26 on the basis of a preliminary draft by Lehrmann produced 63 proposals, of which at least the projects awarded in 1926 were almost entirely neo-baroque buildings in neoclassical guise. None of these designs were implemented. On behalf of the Weimarhalle AG, City Planning Officer Max Vogeler designed an implementation project that was approved by the Weimar City Planning Council in September 1927, taking into account ideas from the competition entries, in particular the stepped terrace design proposed by his son Günther Vogeler, but also taking up the preliminary design by Lehrmann. The start of construction was delayed due to the beginning global economic crisis. It was only in connection with the imminent ceremonies of honor for the 100th anniversary of Goethe's death that the city council finally decided in September 1930 that the building project should be implemented immediately, reducing costs and, in connection with this, repeated fundamental project changes. The “Weimarhalle” was inaugurated in March 1932 with an extremely modern attitude for a building project in Weimar, albeit with a moderately modern design overall. ” Source: https://e-pub.uni-weimar.de/opus4/frontdoor /deliver/index/docId/48/file/Loos_pdfa.pdf - pdf, page 23, accessed on September 27, 2019
- ↑ https://www.weimarhalle.de/congress-centrum-weimarhalle/geschichte/1931-1974/ - accessed on September 27, 2019
- ↑ Manfred Dieck and Peter Zeh: Weimar-Nord - Chronicle of a district of the city of Weimar 1900-2008 . Ed .: Local council Weimar-Nord. Weimar 2009, p. 37 .
- ↑ https://www.nationaltheater-weimar.de/de/ueber-uns/spielorte/redoute.php - accessed on September 27, 2019
- ↑ Herman van Veen only began his concert after all those interested in the concert had been admitted to the Weimarhalle without a ticket at his express request - the old Weimarhalle had not been that full for a long time before and after.
- ↑ “In the mid to late 80s in particular, the Weimarhalle was the venue for concerts that hadn't existed before: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Shakin 'Stevens, Konstantin Wecker, Hermann van Veen and Erste Allgemeine Verunsicherung were here. Since 1978 the Weimarhalle has been assigned to a centrally controlled working group “Culture Palaces, Town Halls and Culture Parks”, which was subordinate to the Ministry of Culture of the GDR. From 1980 it was allowed that the management of the hall could conclude its own event contracts through the artist agency of the GDR. But also in the years before there were many performances with artists who came from the west: Katharina Valente, Katja Ebstein, Albano and Romina Power, Cindy & Bert, the Vienna Boys' Choir and many others. In addition to these guest performances, the hall was also the setting for the FDJ youth meetings, dance lessons, final balls, youth consecrations, New Year's balls. " Source: https://www.meinanzeiger.de/weimar/c-kultur/alte-weimarhalle-mdr-sucht- zeitdokumente_a25233 - accessed on September 27, 2019
- ↑ State curator in the Free State of Thuringia was Rudolf Zießler at that time
Coordinates: 50 ° 59 ′ 1.4 ″ N , 11 ° 19 ′ 30.7 ″ E