Our Soundtrack for 2023: Berlin Calendar

2023 BERLIN CALENDAR MUSIC

Our 2023 wall calendar is all about music. The line-up is as rich in contrast as the city of Berlin itself. The Kammermusiksaal is displayed as the title picture, with Potsdamer Platz in the background. The Komische Oper, the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt and the Deutsche Oper also join the party. Not to mention the Holzmarkt area, the Duncker Club and the Kreuzberger Lido making their appearance too.

What may this new year hold for us? In our calendar the year begins with the Komische Oper in Mitte. The building is a surprise box – behind the simple 1960s facade hides a neo-baroque interior. From 2023, this opera house on Behrensstrasse is to be renovated. We are looking forward to this.

Funkhaus (radio station), Nalepastraße in Oberschöneweide was completed in 1951 according to the designs of the architect Franz Ehrlich, since the GDR needed its own broadcasting center after the division of Germany. The building complex consists of various individual buildings in the New Objectivity style. There are also guided tours of the site – the tours can be booked here.

In the month of March, a 1950s building from West Berlin adorns the calendar. The concert hall of the Universität der Kunst Berlin (Berlin Univeristy of the Arts), designed by the architect Paul Gotthilf Reinhold Baumgarten, was completed in 1954 and has been a listed building since 1995.

April – month of the cherry blossom, also known as sakura. The Metropol can be seen on our April graphic – other names for the venue include Theater am Nollendorfplatz, Neues Schauspielhaus or Goya. The building at Nollendorfplatz was built in 1906 by Boswau & Knauer.

For May, the Kammermusiksaal (chamber music hall) at the Kulturforum is lit up with Potsdamer Platz in the background. In 1987, Hans Scharoun’s student and office partner Edgar Wisniewski added the Chamber Music Hall to the Philharmonie. The Berlin Philharmonic describes the chamber music hall as the “little brother of the Berlin Philharmonic – both architecturally and musically”. 

Introducing June: The RBB television center – formerly the SFB television center on Theodor-Heuss-Platz was built according to plans by Robert Tepez and officially opened in 1970. The 18-storey television center is a listed building and is considered an important building of Berlin’s post-war modern era.

In July we have illustrated Berlin’s largest opera house – the Deutsche Oper – built in 1961 by the Berlin architect Fritz Bornemann. The 70 meter long, windowless façade made of exposed aggregate concrete slabs is ornamented and brought to life by Hans Uhlmann’s sculpture

Hello August! Hello summer! In Berlin, this time of year is best enjoyed by the Spree. That’s what the establishers of the Holzmarkt site thought too. Thus, opportunistic urban spaces were created on this bank of the Spree in Berlin Mitte according to plans by the architects “Hütten & Paläste“.

A prominent “gap filler” is pictured in September – the Lido in Kreuzberg. We could not find any information about the building. The typical, pragmatic building development in a gap left by the war offers space for concerts from punk to indie.

The monumental Haus des Rundfunks can be seen on October’s page. The building with its striking facade made of glazed ceramic tiles and clinker bricks designed by Hans Poelzig was opened in 1931. 

On display for the month of November is the building that has housed the Dunckerclub since 1989. The brick building on Dunckerstrasse was built in 1914 by Ludwig Ernst Emil Hoffmann. In earlier times the rooms have served as a horse stable, salt store, gymnasium and youth club.

On the last page of 2023’s calendar edition, things get festive with the Konzerthaus am Gendarmernarkt. The building planned by Karl Friedrich Schinkel is one of the main works of German classicism. Destroyed in World War II, it was rebuilt in the 1980s.

 

To close: We have never had the calendar ready as early as this year. Due to the paper crisis, the printing company asked us to define the quantity back in January. Designing the graphics for this beautiful theme went so well that we were able to print in June. As always, the coveted calendar is printed on heavy recycled paper and the edition is limited to 600 copies. Last year the calendars were sold out from mid-December, so it’s probably worth buying early.