Lichtburg

The Lichtenburg was a large cinema in Berlin's healthy well. It was designed by the architect Rudolf Frankel built in the immediate vicinity of BerlinGesundbrunnen station ( Behmstraße between Bad and Heidebrinker road ) 1929.

History

The Berlin Lichtenburg was opened on 25 December 1929. They formed the social, cultural and urban heart of also designed by Rudolf Frankel Atlantic Garden City. The Lichtenburg was at that time one of the most important theater and vaudeville theater in Germany - Amüsierpalast with more than 2000 seats, dance and banquet halls, restaurants, bars, cafes, bowling alleys and club rooms.

In the 1930s the house was operated under the direction of Walter Kirchhoff as a popular opera theater. In 1939, the " linearization " of the Lichtenburg after the Jewish owner, publisher, entrepreneur and cinema pioneer Karl Wolff son had acquired with the help of American investors in 1937, the garden city of Atlantic, including the play of light house.

In the last days of the Second World War the building was severely damaged. Parts of the cinemas were built makeshift after the foyer of the Red Army had temporarily served as a horse stable. In 1947 the re-opening under the name Corso Theatre, with first operetta programs.

Until the construction of the wall especially numerous in East Berlin visited the border cinema in the French sector. The isolation of the borough of Wedding due to the division of Berlin led in 1962 to the closure of the cinema. Then the ensemble of the Senate served for some years as wheat and canned depot. During his extensive rehabilitation programs finally took place in 1970, the demolition of the listed building complex.

Today, a sculpture reminiscent of the intercultural center of Lichtburgforum of the once legendary venue.

Architecture

The detailed design Frankel of 1929 symbolizes the enthusiasm which was connected in those years with the new medium of cinema. The architectural language of the Lichtenburg reminiscent of pioneering projects of the time by architects such as Erich Mendelsohn, with their distinctive, mostly horizontal branches and the expressive performance markedly protuberant curves.

Frankel draft of Lichtenburg was characterized by an exciting change from horizontal and vertical bands. The ensemble consisted of two horizontally structured wings - a five-storey at the Behmstraße and a four-storey to the child Heidebrinker street - between which the main rooms of the theaters were located. The elegant facade backswing the left wing construction and the bold in connection salience of a vertically divided foyer and hall rotunda at the intersection of the two streets presented represents a compelling corner solution

At night, dominated the vertical appearance, arranged from 15 in the semicircle, continuous window bands of white opal glass resulted, which were backlit by a total of 1000 bulbs. The glazing of the input range with integrated light boxes for Cinema also produced a floating character of the 22.5 -meter-high building structure, which was crowned by a flat cylinder glass roof pavilions.

From here, irradiated three rotating Marinescheinwerfer with parabolic light signals far into the environment beyond. On the edge of the roof eventually formed the word " Lichtenburg " from 1.20 meters high red neon letters that repeated itself on the wings of the Behmstraße, the upper end. The principle of cinema - the light projecting in dark room - was thus transmitted through the lighting concept literally out into the nocturnal context of urban space.

Leading publications such as the construction world reported on the opening of the large cinemas. Praise was in addition to the architectural and urbanistic gesture also the pioneering technical equipment and successful spatial organization. Was pointed explicitly among other things, a new concept of two-sided -to-use dressing rooms, which allowed an interference-free control of tourist flows through separate inputs and outputs.