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When thinking of Berlin’s cinema buildings, most people recollect the film
houses and the Art Nouveau picture palaces beaming films into the
night in the twenties. Many of these buildings that established Berlin’s
reputation as a cinema city did not survive the war. Very soon, however,
the considerable gaps in the rows of the cinemas were to be closed
again. Following various reconstructions and conversions, not only
did a new building boom begin in the fifties, but new aesthetics also became
recognisable. Whereas so far modern functionalism and well-defined lines
had determined constructivist clarity in the architecture, now a more lively
use of forms appeared, shaped by names such as Bruno Meltendorf, Hans Bielenberg,
Paul Bode and Gerhard Fritsche. The often generously glazed entrance halls
and foyers normally led to rooms with a dynamic interplay of rounded corners,
asymmetrical lines or wave-like structures of the walls and ceilings. And
to think this occurred in rooms of a relatively small size. In the
sixties, however, grandiose and glamorous spatial dynamics occurred. The
style is far removed from the architectural efficiency that characterises
most modern multiplex cinemas now-adays which seem to be geared more towards
the functional aesthetics of multi-storey car parks. Up until the sixties,
the idea of an aesthetic experience charmingly combined in architecture
and film was still evident in the design of cinemas. These theatres
are where the big cinema boom of the post-war era took place. These were
where youthful rebellion against bourgeois family structures developed,
and then those same families were brought together again by spending a
few pleasant hours in the cinema. The atmosphere of these buildings is
inextricably linked to the early experiences of film in colour and the
Big Screen that, for a long time, formed a contrast to the grey cityscape
of the post-war era. This is how they finally became an integral part of
our cultural memory: "Do you remember that time in the cinema...".
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