775 Years of Berlin

Berlin turns 775!

On October 28^th in 2012 Germany’s capital is going to celebrate its 775th birthday. Referring to an official ceremonial act at Nikolaikirche, the oldest parish church in Berlin, the historical city center will be illuminated with fire and light and will be staged with medieval sounds during the evening to celebrate a grand party. In the forefront of the celebration, starting at the end of August already, various exhibitions, urban space productions, guided tours and activities are going to take place. In doing so Berlin wants to remember its medieval roots and present itself as a cosmopolitan city – for this purpose two big and central open-air-projects are being developed in Berlin’s city center.

The anniversary leads back to the first documented mention of Berlin’s sister city Cölln from October 28^th of 1237. The city of the Middle Ages was even smaller than Berlin’s wildlife park today. In the past years many spectacular archeological excavations took place in the historical center of the city, for example at the construction site of the U-Bahn in front of the Rotes Rathaus (the city hall of Berlin). Exhibitions and special guided tours will connect the excavations Patriplatz and Großer Jüdenhof amongst others, but also famous building like the Marienkirche -an artifact of medieval times- will be made accessible to a large public (August 25^th until October 28^th).

Berlin is a city of diversity – from approximately 2000 settlers in the year 1237 the city grew up to 3.5 million inhabitants during a history of migration and cultural exchange. Huguenots, Bohemians, Polish migrant workers, Jews from Eastern Europe, guest workers from Southern Europe, war refugees, employees with contracts for services, emigrants and – since the fall of the wall – a globalized young elite working in the arts and culture fields moved and still move to Berlin. An open-air-exhibition in the city center offers meetings and makes the city perceptible as a collective accomplishment of old and new Berliners (August 25^th until October 28^th).

So far, Berlin has celebrated its birthday for only three times. De facto the anniversary “775 Years of Berlin” rather refers to the medieval origins than to the doubled 750-years-anniversary from 1987 in the divided Berlin or to the 700-years-anniversary from 1937 in the Nazi-capital. According to the public productions of these three anniversaries there will also be an open-air-exhibition (starting on August 25^th). Next to an exhibition at Ephraim-Palais -showing 75 historic lifetime images and 700 abbreviatory portraits of today’s Berliners (April 17^th until October 28^th 2012)- the Historiale (24^th until 26^th of August), the 31. The Long Night of Museums (25^th of August) and the Day of the Open Memorial (8^th/9^th of September) will also be standing in the reference to the anniversary “775 Years of Berlin”.

The state-owned association Kulturprojekte Berlin will be undertaking the conception and organization of the anniversary celebrations in 2012. The representative sponsorship comes from the German Class Lottery Berlin as well as from the capital-campaign “The changing of Berlin”.