Press Information Bourgeoisie, Swing and Molotov-Cocktails Amerika Haus Through the Ages

Press Information Bourgeoisie, Swing and Molotov-Cocktails Amerika Haus through the ages

Millions of Berlin residents sought information in the library or at the screenings. Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Willy Brandt visited. Eggs and Molotov cocktails were thrown at the building and it was secured with barbed wire. Lyonel Feininger, Robert Rauschenberg and Gordon Parks exhibited their works here – the Amerika Haus in Berlin is much more than just an architectural treasure from the 1950s. The changeful history of the twentieth century is reflected in the immediate vicinity. Until 1945, the area in the Hardenbergstraße accommodated a Prussian officer’s club, a wild amusement boulevard and gloomy exhibitions of National Socialist art. Following the Second World War, the light-flooded, filigree Amerika Haus was for 50 years a point of divergence for cultural and political discussions and international controversy between peaceful re-education, western propaganda and fervid anti-American senti- ments. In the exhibition showing historical photographs, C/O Berlin will for the first time document the location and its environment, which has undergone rapid changes over the last 150 years – a local urbanization that is also symbolic of the developments in Berlin as a whole.

First came the animals – in 1844 the Zoologischer Garten (Berlin Zoological Garden) was opened at the edge of the Tiergarten park and initially extended as far as the Hardenbergstraße. In the 1870s, work began on the construction of the city railway and in 1884 the station Bahnhof Zoo was opened. This made the neighbourhood appealing for a wide range of different new user groups on a long-term basis. On the site where the Amerika Haus would later stand, a master builder and an investor built a baroque villa. In addition, the area was enhanced by middle-class amuse- ments such as a riding hall, a theme-based exhibition, a triumphal arch, panorama views and a skating rink. In 1899, modern art came to Charlottenburg. The art association “Berliner Secession”, which included Max Liebermann, Max Slevogt and Lovis Corinth, moved into a building next to what is today the Theater des Westens (Theatre of the West).

After the First World War, the villa was sold to an officer’s association. The Hardenbergstraße did not remain just a residential street – it became livelier and more urban. Amusement, bars and night-life were the way of the future. In 1926, the officer association building was renamed and became a cabaret and dance venue, “Villa d’Este”. In the gol- den twenties, on the site where the Amerika Haus was later built, the Berlin residents danced to their heart’s content. In the 1940s, there was Nazi art instead of swing music and the “Berliner Kunsthalle” (Berlin Art Exhibition Hall) was built. At least ten exhibitions of Nazi art were held here – photography from Mussolini’s Italy, Croatian photographic art and large portraits of political greats from the Third Reich, taken by Hitler’s personal photographer Walter Frentz.

At the end of the war, the villa d’Este was destroyed, together with the Kunsthalle. At the beginning of the 1950s, US allies discussed the idea of building Amerika Haus on this site – to intentionally provide a counterbalance to the location’s Nationalist Socialist past. Initially, Walter Gropius was to design it, however he withdrew due to financial disagreements. As a result, the contract was awarded to the Berlin architect Bruno Grimmek, who had already built the Marshall Haus by the trade fair. Since 1957, Amerika Haus has housed a library specializing in US literature and magazines and has offered an extensive cultural program including films, theatre, English courses and concerts. In the beginning, it was also a place for the re-education of the Germans during the time of the Berlin wall, and an institution for anti-communist propaganda, and since the 1970s it has increasingly become an ordinary, regionally- orientated cultural centre.

At the end of the 1950s, Amerika Haus attracted more public attention, as the protests against the “American Im- perialism” began here with demonstrations by the FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend, an organization for teenagers in the GDR). In 1966, the first anti-Vietnam demonstration headed for the building. For the first time, eggs were thrown at the façade – at later demonstrations it was stones and incendiary devices. The student demonstrations were followed by letters of apology by the rector of the Freie Universität to the US citizens and counter-demonstrations by the CDU. In the course of the anti-American protests since the 1960s and following the terror attacks on 11th September, Amerika Haus closed itself off more and more, becoming a fortress. US institutions increased their security measures to such an extent that only invited guests could visit the building – behind high fences, with rolling grilles in front of the windows and security doors. At the latest when the new American embassy opened at Brandenburger Tor and the ownership of the property was transferred to the state of Berlin in 2006, Amerika Haus fell into a deep slumber.

C/O Berlin Foundation . Hardenbergstraße 22–24 . 10623 Berlin . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.org Information and Dates

Amerika Haus is currently being carefully renovated. The opening of the building is planned for spring 2014. C/O Berlin will present the first exhibitions as early as summer 2013 – while the building is still being refurbished. However, not in the Amerika Haus building itself, but open-air, in front of the building. 24 hours a day, seven days per week and accessible to everyone free of charge. In the upcoming months, on a large number of columns, C/O Berlin will present photographs that deal with the theme of the new location, the surrounding environment and the neighbours – a visual intermezzo that will last until the building is reopened.

The exhibition includes approximately 120 historical and contemporary photographs. It was initiated by C/O Berlin and curated by Dr. Hans Georg Hiller von Gaertringen.

Open-air exhibition Bourgeoisie, Swing and Molotov Cocktails The Amerika Haus through the ages

Exhibition 13 July to 15 September 2013 Opening Friday, 12 July 2013, 7pm Press conference Friday, 12 July 2013,11 am

Opening hours daily . 24 hours Admission free

Location C/O Berlin in front of the Amerika Haus Hardenbergstraße 22-24 . 10623 Berlin www.co-berlin.org

Event organiser C/O Berlin Foundation

Press contact Mirko Nowak Telephone 030.28 44 41 60 . [email protected] www.co-berlin.org

Partner

Supporter

C/O Berlin Foundation . Hardenbergstraße 22–24 . 10623 Berlin . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.org Press images

04 02

C/O Berlin Foundation . Hardenbergstraße 22–24 . 10623 Berlin . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.org 07 09

All images except 01 & 04 © Alliierten Museum Berlin Image 06 © Alliierten Museum Berlin / Pressebild 10 Schubert

01 Waldemar Titzenthaler, Zoo station, 1898 02 Construction site Amerika Haus, 1956 03 The director of the music program of the Amerika-Haus, the composer and music theorist Dr. Dietrich Manicke, presents listening booths for records with two assistants, 1957 04 Cover of the radical left-wing magazine “Agit 883”, issue 60, 1970 05 “Book- mobile” in front of the new Amerika Haus, 1952 06 Willy Brandt speaks at the exhibition opening of the history of the US-Armee, 1964 07 Amerika Haus, view from above, 1957 08 Recording of radio show “Spaß muß sein. Quiz, Musik und gute Laune” with Hans Rosenthal, 1971 09 The 298th Army Band plays for the waiting crowd, 5th June 1975 10 Performance “Cry of the Thunderbird”, 19th September 1959

Print media may publish up to three images, online media only after permission. The images may only be used once and during the exhibition. The images may not be modified, cut nor otherwise be altered. The correct titles must always be mentioned. C/O Berlin and the exhibition have to be mentioned in case of publication.

C/O Berlin Foundation . Hardenbergstraße 22–24 . 10623 Berlin . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.org Amerika-Haus institutions around the world Dr. Hans Georg Hiller von Gaertringen

The Amerika Haus institutions have been a central element of the US foreign policy since World War II. As “U.S. Infor- mation Centers” they have been set up in almost all non-communist countries around the world—from Argentina to Taiwan. In Germany they were founded almost straight after 1945 by the occupying forces as public libraries. How- ever, the Amerika Haus institutions soon became more than just a place where visitors could immerse themselves in U.S. reading material. Exhibitions and films were shown, lectures were held and concerts were given. In this way, a concept of a US cultural institution was created that was open to everyone. The initial intention of the Amerika Haus institutions was above all to support the so-called re-education and help free the Germans from the ideological demon of the Nazi era. The main target groups were teachers and students, white- collar workers and entrepreneurs—in short: all those who call the shots in social debates. The idea was that the Ger- mans should learn that democracy is better than dictatorship, freedom better than belief in authority and individuality better than Volksgemeinschaft (ethnic community). At the same time the aim was that they would become familiar with the culture of the new allies, the culture of the United States. That they would realize that America stands for much more than skyscrapers, bubblegum and Coca Cola. For this purpose, as far back as 1950, 27 Amerika Haus institutions were founded in West Germany and Berlin.

Just two years after the end of the war, a new global-political conflict began: the Cold War between the Western allies and the Soviet Union. The Amerika Haus institutions hence played an additional propaganda role. They now had the goal of actively fighting communism—a task that was particularly important in the “front-line state” of West Berlin.

In the early 1950s the Americans began to house the previously provisional information centers in new buildings in the most important locations—a total of nine new Amerika Haus buildings were constructed in Berlin, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hof, Cologne, Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart. Initially, in 1952 a model design was conceived by the renowned US architectural office Skidmore / Owings / Merrill (SOM), however then a decision was made to commis- sion different German architects with the respective buildings. Although the new Amerika Haus buildings that were constructed look different, they are all in the style of Post-War Modernism—functional, not too lofty, asymmetrical. With this, the Americans also distanced themselves from the temple-like “cultural buildings” of the GDR, which with their neo-classicist architectural language continued the tradition of the Nazi era in the spirit of Stalinism.

As far back as the 1950s, the Amerika Haus institutions were also a target of attack in a range of countries: they were seen as symbols of the US influence on the politics of independent states and “cultural imperialism”. At one time it was French communists who destroyed the Amerika Haus buildings, for example in Bordeaux and Lille in 1952 while another time it was Cypriot National Socialists such as those in Athens in 1956. In the Eastern Bloc countries their opening was prevented from the very beginning. The annual demonstrations of the East-Berlin Freie Deutsche Jugend on 1st May in front of the Amerika Haus in Berlin (“Unsere Losung am 1. Mai: Mitteleuropa atomwaffenfrei! / Our motto on 1st may—A Nuclear-free Central Europe!“) were harmless compared to those at the end of the 1950s. The time of the big anti-American protests in Berlin were yet to come.

C/O Berlin Foundation . Hardenbergstraße 22–24 . 10623 Berlin . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.org The first Amerika-Haus in Berlin

The first Amerika Haus in Berlin was opened by the US occupying troops as far back as 26th February 1946. It was housed in a half-destroyed old building in the Kleiststraße, numbers 10–12, in Schöneberg. Initially it was a library. Here the Berlin residents could find books that had been banned by the Nazis as well as American literature and press. Soon these were supplemented by a wider range, which generated a great deal of interest in a city that was starved of culture, in which almost all the museums and libraries had been destroyed or closed. The first exhibition was held as early as summer 1946. The theme was “Jugendbücher aus aller Welt / Books for youths from around the world”. The Amerika Haus was particularly open for the world of children and youths as they were the future of the new Germany, which the Americans wanted to promote with their cultural politics. While in West Berlin the enthu- siasm for the range of publications was for the large part very strong, very different comments were heard from the east. When in 1949 “Moderne amerikanische Architektur / Modern American Architecture” was shown, the newspa- per “Berliner Zeitung”, published in the East, attacked the exhibition with a combination of German arrogance and Cold War rhetoric: “The German inhabitants of the cities bombed by the Americans are able to admire the oversized luxury of a country whose ruling class, after two wars with which they made big business, can enjoy comfort and wealth”.

In June 1949, the Amerika Haus moved 500 metres down the road and took up residence in the Einemstraße 1, not far from Nollendorfplatz. Its program included the goal of making the Germans familiar once again with their great exiled talents who had left the country after 1933. Hence with an exhibition in 1953, the Amerika Haus showed the Berlin residents what architect Mies van der Rohe had achieved in the US since leaving the capital of the German Reich in 1938. In 1952, plans to move were underway once again. West Berlin, in which the Americans had invested an incomparable amount in order to maintain it as the “Outpost of Freedom”, was to be incorporated into the new building program for the Amerika Haus institutions in Germany. The building plans were a symbol of the success of the Amerika Haus institutions with the German audience. Due to the diverse range that they offered, they succeeded in establishing themselves in Berlin’s cultural life and were greatly frequented. There were plans to construct the Amerika Haus in Berlin in the Hardenbergstraße. There were many aspects in favor of this location: the site was clear after the final war debris had been removed in 1952 and now belonged to the city of Berlin. Locating the institution here would counteract the Nazi propaganda that was spread during the war years in the “Kunsthalle” with a new, positive tradition. The Amerika Haus was located in the midst of the well-visited new center of West-Berlin. The East- Berlin residents, who the US particularly wanted to convince of the advantages of the West, could reach it—before the wall was built—in just a few minutes by suburban railway from Alexanderplatz and Friedrichstraße. More than that, because the suburban railway throughout the whole of Berlin belonged to the GDR Reich railway, they could even buy their tickets using Ostmarks.

C/O Berlin Foundation . Hardenbergstraße 22–24 . 10623 Berlin . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.org C/O Berlin

Since its founding in 2000, C/O Berlin has been presenting a lively cultural program of international stature. As an exhibition centre for photography, C/O Berlin presents the work of renowned artists, organizes events, promotes talented young artists, and accompanies children on voyages of discovery through our visual culture. C/O Berlin is a private foundation that distinguishes itself through innovative arts administration. Intensive educational work and close cooperation with institutions worldwide make C/O Berlin a unique center of cultural exchange—one of a kind not only in Berlin, but in the whole of Germany.

Foundation Within just thirteen years, a spontaneous initiative—based on the civil commitment of the photographer Stephan Erfurt, designer Marc Naroska and architect Ingo Pott—has developed into a successful exhibition venue with an impressive public presence. From the very beginning, the three founders had the goal of creating an institution for the promotion of photography, which would work independently and free of commercial interests. At the beginning of 2013, all the activities were brought together under the umbrella of a non-profit foundation. The idea itself has hence become the carrier of the institution—detached from the founders. The concept of the foundation as a legal entity is held in high regard in Germany and internationally. The acknowledgment of the non-profit status generates trust—for visitors, friends, supporters and partners.

Exhibitions C/O Berlin shows up to 17 exhibitions annually. The collaborations with prominent international photo- graphers such as Annie Leibovitz, Martin Parr, Nan Goldin, Anton Corbijn, Peter Lindbergh or René Burri attest C/O Berlin’s high level of competency in terms of concept and presentation. Artist talks, lectures and guided tours provide insight into individual aspects of the work and explore the perspectives of the exhibitions in greater depth. Many of the exhibitions are organized in cooperation with museums, collections, archives, photo agencies and galleries from around the world.

Talents Talents is an annual internationally advertised competition for young contemporary photography and art criticism. Since 2006, C/O Berlin has been supporting this exhibition series as a means of promoting young photo- graphers and art critics who are at the threshold of their career. Each of the four solo exhibitions per year is accompa- nied by a publication in which image and text enter into dialogue. This program, which is unique in Europe, is a kind of creative campus for many young artists and a facilitator for future international exhibitions.

Junior With the Junior program, C/O Berlin offers children the opportunity to playfully become acquainted with photography, design and architecture, to train their visual perception and to creatively put their own ideas into practice. An inherent part of the expert-run, pedagogically supervised workshops are the visits to the studios and offices of the creative disciplines. In this way, the 6 to 14 year olds can further develop their social competencies under artistic guidance. Junior supplements C/O Berlin’s lively and diverse program by making an important contribution to visual education.

Teens Discovering cultural diversity, developing ideas together, gaining new experience—with the Teens program, C/O Berlin will enable youths to become familiar with visual media, ranging from photography to film, in a professional context, and to experiment with it playfully in a team—from the concept to the finished work of art. In workshops las- ting several days, the youths, aged between 14 and 17, will not only acquire specific knowledge but will also be able to train their perception and their own creative approach.

Projects C/O Berlin brings people together. It is a place of encounter and cultural exchange, drawing on a wide va- riety of event formats— direct, versatile, live. Together with partners from the fields of art, media, economics, politics and science, C/O Berlin realizes workshops, guided tours, book presentations, seminars, conferences and perfor- mances. Book Days, lectures, Photography Days and concerts are examples of successfully established formats, which are continually being expanded and supplemented.

C/O Berlin Foundation . Hardenbergstraße 22–24 . 10623 Berlin . Telefon +49.30.28 44 41 60 . Telefax +49.30.28 44 41 619 . [email protected] . www.co-berlin.org