Haus der Kulturen der Welt: The Pregnant Oyster
Why is it significant?
Walk up to the long reflecting pool and let your eyes follow the roof of the building in front of you: a huge concrete shell curving up into the sky on both sides, like a hat brim caught by the wind.
Key Facts
| Place | Haus der Kulturen der Welt: The Pregnant Oyster |
|---|---|
| Address | John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.51880, 13.36480 |
| Part of Walk | Glass Dome and Golden Angel: Berlin's Reichstag, Tiergarten & Victory Column |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk up to the long reflecting pool and let your eyes follow the roof of the building in front of you: a huge concrete shell curving up into the sky on both sides, like a hat brim caught by the wind. In the water sits a bronze sculpture by Henry Moore, two great smooth forms almost touching, called Butterfly.
Berliners, never shy, named this building the schwangere Auster... the pregnant oyster. It was built in 1957 as the Kongresshalle, the Congress Hall, a gift from the United States to West Berlin, designed by the American architect Hugh Stubbins. It was meant as a message across the Cold War: a free, open meeting place, deliberately visible from the East, with a roof that seemed to float.
Big names came to speak under that roof. On the 26th of June 1963, the same day he told a huge crowd in Schöneberg that he was a Berliner, John F. Kennedy also addressed a trade union congress inside this hall. For West Berlin, an island surrounded by East Germany, a building like this was a kind of window to the world.
Then on the 21st of May 1980 the unthinkable happened: part of the great roof suddenly collapsed. One person was killed and several were injured. Engineers found that the steel cables inside the concrete had corroded. Berlin argued about whether to rebuild, and in the end the shell was reconstructed and reopened in 1987, the year the city celebrated its 750th anniversary. Since 1989 it has been the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, the House of the World's Cultures, full of exhibitions, music and debates from every continent.
Just beside it stands a tall black tower that sometimes starts to sing. It is a carillon with sixty-eight bells, also a present for that anniversary, and on concert days the bells ring out over the treetops. Now find the path down to the river behind the building and walk a short way west along the water, where the city suddenly goes quiet.