The Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), in English House of the World's Cultures, in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

is Germany's national center for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary arts, with a special focus on non-European cultures and societies. It presents art exhibitions,

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

and dance performances,

concert A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band. Concerts are held in a wide var ...

s, author

reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spell ...

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

s and

academic conference An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic or scientific journal ...

s on Visual Art and culture. It is one of the institutions which, due to their national and international standing and the quality of their work, receive funding from the federal government as so-called "lighthouses of culture", from the Federal Minister of State for Culture and the Media as well as from the Federal Foreign Office. As a venue and collaboration partner, HKW has hosted festivals such as the

transmediale Transmediale, stylised as transmediale is an annual festival for art and digital culture in Berlin, usually held over five days at the end of January and the beginning of February. Transmediale takes the form of a conference (sometimes called ...

, curatorial platforms, biennials such as the

Berlin Documentary Forum The Berlin Documentary Forum (BDF) was a biennale held at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. Interdisciplinary in orientation, it engaged with the 'documentary’ across the fields of film, photography, contemporary art, performance, arch ...

, and mentorship programs such as Forecast. Since 2013, its interdisciplinary elaboration on the Anthropocene discourse has included conferences, exhibitions, and other artistic formats performed together with philosophers, scientists, and arstists, such as Bruno Latour and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber.

Location and history

The ''Haus der Kulturen der Welt'' is located in the Tiergarten park, and directly neighbors the Carillon and the new

German Chancellery The German Chancellery (german: Bundeskanzleramt, , more faithfully translated as ''Federal Chancellery'' or ''Office of the Federal Chancellor'') is an agency serving the executive office of the chancellor of Germany, the head of the federal go ...

. It was formerly known as the ''Kongresshalle'' conference hall, a gift from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, designed in 1957 by the American architect Hugh Stubbins as a part of the Interbau, an International Building Exhibition. U.S. President John F. Kennedy spoke here at a trade union meeting during his June 1963 visit to West Berlin. On May 21, 1980, the roof collapsed, killing one and injuring numerous people. The hall was rebuilt in its original style and reopened in 1987 in time for the 750-year anniversary of the founding of Berlin.

Henry Moore sculpture

Outside the entrance, Henry Moore's heaviest bronze sculpture, ''Large Divided Oval: Butterfly'' (1985–86), stands in the middle of a circular basin. Weighing nearly nine tons, it was his final major work, completed just before he died. One of three public Moore sculptures in Berlin (the others being ''Three Way Piece No.2: The Archer'' (1964–65) at the Neue Nationalgalerie and ''Reclining Figure'' (1956) at the

Akademie der Künste The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The Academy's predecessor organization was ...

), ''Butterfly'' was initially a loan to (then West) Berlin in 1986, but the city council wanted the sculpture permanently, and asked Moore if he would donate it. The letter arrived just before his death and went unanswered. In 1988 it was sold by the Henry Moore Foundation to Berlin for 4.5 million Deutsche Mark (around $2.58 million at the exchange rate of the day), then a huge sum for a public sculpture. The sculpture was eventually badly damaged by a combination of environmental pollution and vandalism, and restored in 2010.

In popular culture

Typical of Berlin's popular humor, Berliners have nicknamed the building ''Die schwangere Auster'' ("The pregnant Oyster"). In 2005 the building served as an outdoor set for the science fiction action film '' Æon Flux''.

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External links

* {{Authority control Tensile membrane structures Art museums and galleries in Berlin Buildings and structures completed in 1987 Buildings and structures in Mitte

Location and history

Henry Moore sculpture

In popular culture

See also

Sources

External links