PDF; 7,6 MB - ORCO Germany

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»Kulturzeit« – presenter Andrea Meier (M) debated the issue of »Staging Urban Spaces« with Eike Becker, Meinhard von Gerkan, Hanns Zischerl, the artist Nikki S. Lee and Oliver Hirschbiegel.
Just as certain settings can arouse such an emotional reaction, does
architecture play such a major role in the emotional medium of film?
There is no greater event in Berlin than the Berlinale. The ten-day
international film festival lures both big movie stars and countless
cinéastes from all over the world to Berlin and bathes the city
in a glittering, cosmopolitan light. Those who only gawp at the
red carpet and are satisfied with the whole »Oh, look, it’s George
Clooney« spectacle, are missing the unique variety of the film festival,
which makes it completely different to the other A-list festivals
in Cannes and Venice. The films shown here are often less
commercial and more radical in their statements, offering food for
debate and exchange. This is what happened in spring 2007, when
ORCO hosted a discussion event in cooperation with »Deutsche
Kinemathek« on the fringe of the Berlinale, at which international
guests debated the influence of film on the rest of the art world.
At the heart of the event, which was called »Creation and Narration
of Urban Spaces«, was the tension between cinema and architecture.
The event set aside the usual seminar structure and got the
debate off to a refreshing and relevant start by showing a restored
version of the silent classic »People on Sunday«. The choice for
kicking off couldn’t have been better. This outstanding work from
Germany’s historic silent film era, made in 1929 by Robert Siodmak
and Billy Wilder, tells the story of Berlin as a city, its architecture
and the lives of its inhabitants. In semi-documentary style,
»People on Sunday« shows four young people going about their
daily lives in the vibrant metropolis of Berlin in the 1920s, demonstrating
how later, thanks to the natural surroundings, they react
much more freely when they go on a Sunday trip to Wannsee. In
this way, »People on Sunday« poses questions that are still relevant
to life in the city today.
The follow-up expert panel discussion at Leipziger Platz on the
subject of »Tension between creation and narration: the interweaving
of architecture and film« was attended by the film director
Oliver Hirschbiegel, the actor Hanns Zischler, the architects
Meinhard von Gerkan and Eike Becker and the American conceptual
artist Nikki Lee. Summarising, Oliver Hirschbiegel said: »It
is astonishing how much of the Berlin that we saw in the film is
still here« and he gave a succint description of what characterises
Berlin’s architecture today. The ensuing discussion about staging
urban spaces on film continuously revolved around the question
of the interdependencies between film and architecture and how
they mutually influence one another. Everyone agreed that film
certainly has a great influence on our perception of architecture.
As Hanns Zischler so aptly commented: »We often only truly perceive
a space when we’ve seen it on film«. Hirschbiegel’s films are
the best proof of this. As a director, he is known for narrowing
spaces, making situations more intense. As he told the audience, it
was important for him that in his latest work, Invasion, which premieres
in autumn 2007, part of the story be told by the architecture.
The director went on to say: »One can use architecture so well
to express certain attitudes to life«. A no less interesting aspect was
brought into play by the architect of Berlin’s new main railway station,
Meinhard von Gerkan. He underlined the part played by the
energy that fills a room. This energy can be created by past histories
that have left their mark on a space, or it can be traces of a real life
that are still evident. In this regard, Oliver Hirschbiegel related an
interesting observation made during the filming of Downfall (Der
Untergang): immediately after a scene in the reconstructed Führer
bunker was in the can, the actors fled off the set. Just as certain settings
can arouse an emotional reaction, does architecture play such
a major role in the emotional medium of film? In Hirschbiegel’s
view: »There are spaces that are so positively or negatively charged
that one is consciously or unconsciously content or unhappy to be
there, and this could be very clearly observed during the filming
of Downfall«.
The closing event, an extremely well-organized party with a
roaring 1920s atmosphere, on the other hand, was definitely
untainted by negatively charged architecture. The imposing
rooms and the grand courtyard of the old building Ensemble at
Fehrbelliner Strasse were appropriately furnished and lovingly
decorated, to welcome around 1000 guests from the worlds of
politics, culture and the media, who took over this unusual party
location. Amongst the guests at the converted former factory
were international celebrities such as Jeff Goldblum and homegrown
upcoming talent such as Hannah Herzsprung, who together
with German star actors Klaus J. Behrendt, Gaby Dohm
and Katja Weitzenböck, partied into the small hours in the 1920s
setting. And right at the end, the surprising realization that the
cultural ability of architecture can indeed be planned. The experts
at the panel discussion had been insisting exactly the opposite
earlier in the day … but then, they don’t know it all.
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