Kulturpalast Dresden
The Kulturpalast is a cultural centre on Dresden's Altmarkt, built from 1967 to 1969 and reopened in April 2017 with a new concert hall for the Dresdner Philharmonie.
What it is
The building houses the concert hall of the Dresdner Philharmonie, the city's Zentralbibliothek (central library) and the cabaret Die Herkuleskeule. The operator calls it "Kulturpalast Dresden" in both German and English.
Kommunale Immobilien Dresden (KID), a company of the city, owns and runs the building. It lets the concert hall, library and cabaret to the institutions that use them.
History
The Kulturpalast goes back to an architectural competition of 1959. The design of a team around the architect Leopold Wiel was the basis, and Wolfgang Hänsch became chief architect when the planning passed to a Dresden planning office in 1962.
It was built from 1967 to 1969 and opened on 5 October 1969 with a festival programme. From 1969 the Dresdner Philharmonie and the Sächsische Staatskapelle gave concerts in its multi-purpose hall. For the Philharmonie it was the first permanent venue after 1945.
The Kulturpalast closed in 2012 for conversion to designs by the Berlin architects gmp (von Gerkan, Marg und Partner). It reopened in April 2017 with a newly built concert hall.
The building
Its architecture took up elements of international modernism rather than the high-rise of socialist classicism the doctrine of the time asked for. It is a listed monument of GDR architecture, a steel-frame building with a stone-clad ground floor, an aluminium-and-glass upper storey and a copper roof structure.
On its west side, facing Schloßstraße, is the mural "Der Weg der roten Fahne" (The Way of the Red Flag).