To start the year smoothly, here is an enriched version of a post about the Philharmonie published some time ago. Enriched by photos of the interior, a visit to be made both for the sound quality of these rooms but also for their aesthetics.

If you go a little further away from Potsdamer Platz, towards the west, you will arrive at the Kulturforum, a vast esplanade, a bit cold and empty at first sight.

At the end of the war, when Berlin was split in two, a large number of cultural buildings were found in the East, including the famous Museum Island. A first project, dating back to the 1950s, pushed for the creation of a cultural axis that would cross the city from west to east, as far as the Museum Island, but this project was to disappear with the growing tensions between the two blocks. The Kulturforum project thus became the emblem of West Berlin’s cultural reconstruction.

It is difficult to imagine today what this place looked like in the 1950s and 1960s, between the destruction of the war and the construction of the wall: a large empty space, an illustration of the Cold War and the separation of the two countries.

The most striking one, in terms of colour and shape, is the Philharmonic. In fact, it is a group of different buildings, the last addition dating from the 1980s.

The main building of the Philharmonic was built between 1956 and 1963 and Hans Sharoun was the architect together with Werner Weber. A pentagon-shaped structure with two colours: white and gold.

It’s a good place for an architectural-themed photo outing, and hopefully we’ll be able to get in there soon to see it from the inside.

Now let’s go inside the building. The largest concert hall is impressive:

And here is the so-called chamber music room, a slightly different atmosphere, a little more intimate, while keeping very beautiful volumes:

To find it: https://goo.gl/maps/mLa8zEY4yv3bChYZ7