Guided Tours of the Building Site: The Congress Hall and Berlin's Architecture

Tag des Offenen Denkmals 2006 (Day of the Open Monument)

Sat, Sep 9, 2006
3 pm
Sun, Sep 10, 2006
3 pm

Admission free, advance booking essential 39 78 70, info@hkw.de

The House of World Cultures, Photographer / © Frank Paul / House of World Cultures

Your guide:

Anne Schmedding, research assistant assistant for the exhibition "Architektur der Stadt. Stadt der Architektur" ("Architecture of the city. City of architecture") at the Neues Museum zu Berlin (1999/2000) and co-editor of "Architektur in Berlin" ("Architecture in Berlin"), editor of Daidalos (1996-1999)

Our guided tours of the building site offer glimpses behind the scenes that are only possible while the former Congress Hall is being renovated. In July the most extensive renovation in the building’s history began, together with the modernisation of the structural fabric, which has remained unaltered for nearly fifty years now. On the nationwide Tag des Offenen Denkmals (Day of the Open Monument), experts will describe and comment on the Congress Hall’s unique architecture and the historical context at the time of its construction. The design by US architect Hugh Stubbins, who died only recently, with its symbolic forms and great openness and transparency, makes the building an important 1950s architectural monument of Berlin.