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The Internationales Congress Centrum Berlin (abbreviated ICC Berlin), located in the Westend locality of the Berlin borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, was one of the largest conference centres in Germany. It is used for conventions, theatrical productions and concerts. In April 2014 it was closed in order to remove asbestos contamination, and remains closed as of 2024. [update] [1] In October 2021, it was temporarily reopened for the art project The Sun Machine Is Coming Down as part of the Berliner Festspiele. [2]
ICC Berlin opened in 1979 (three years after the opening of the Palace of the Republic), and its architects were Ursulina Schüler-Witte and Ralf Schüler. It is 320 metres long, 80 metres wide and 40 metres high. It is linked to the neighboring Messe Berlin fairgrounds; often joining in trade shows and exhibitions.
As perhaps Europe's biggest such centre, it was instrumental to Berlin being one of the top congress cities in the world. It is serviced by S-Bahn station Berlin Messe Nord/ICC. By its own reckoning, ICC Berlin is a landmark of post-war German architecture and has served as an inspiration for similar facilities around the globe.
The current ICC is contaminated by asbestos. [3] Its removal will cost much more than the originally planned 259 million Euro. [4]
The ICC features prominently in the 1980 disco musical The Apple, in which it appears as a futuristic concert venue. Many of the film's exterior and interior scenes were filmed in and around the building.
The Grateful Dead played two concerts in the main hall at the ICC as part of their Europe tour in 1990. The concerts were on October 19th and 20th.
The 2009 movie The International was partly filmed in the interior of ICC Berlin.
The pedestrian tunnel was used as a set for popular dance track Around the World (La La La La La) by German Eurodance group ATC in 1999.
It appears in Wim Wenders' 1987 film Wings of Desire .
Alexanderplatz is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin. The square is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander I, which also denotes the larger neighbourhood stretching from Mollstraße in the north-east to Spandauer Straße and the Rotes Rathaus in the south-west.
The Palace of the Republic was a building in Berlin that hosted the Volkskammer, the parliament of East Germany, from 1976 to 1990.
Berliner is most often used to designate a citizen of Berlin, Germany
The Bierpinsel is the nickname of a 47-meter-high building built in 1976 and located on Schloßstraße in Steglitz, Berlin. The building is noted for its futuristic architecture. The building has been listed as a protected structure since January 2017.
The Berliner Philharmonie is a concert hall in Berlin, Germany, and home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
Spichernstraße is a Berlin U-Bahn station located on the U3 and the U9 lines, located in Wilmersdorf neighbourhood. The U3 portion opened on 2 June 1959, replacing the nearby Nürnberger Platz station, which was closed and dismantled. The U9 portion, which lies deeper underground, opened on 28 August 1961 as the southern terminus of the new line, then called G. The eponymous street is named after Spicheren in Lorraine, France, site of the 1870 Battle of Spicheren.
The Center Potsdamer Platz, known as Sony Center until March 2023, is a complex of eight buildings located at the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany, designed by Helmut Jahn. It opened in 2000 and houses Sony's German headquarters. The cinemas in the center were closed at the end of 2019.
Weißensee is a quarter in the borough of Pankow in Berlin, Germany, that takes its name from the small lake Weißer See within it. Before Berlin's 2001 administrative reform, Weißensee was a borough in its own right, consisting of the quarters of Weißensee, Heinersdorf, Blankenburg, Karow, and Stadtrandsiedlung Malchow. A fictional German-language TV series by the same name is set in the borough between 1980 and 1990 during the communist era.
Hotel Excelsior was a hotel in Berlin, Germany. It occupied number 112/113, Königgrätzer Straße on Askanischer Platz in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. It was one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in Europe, until its destruction during World War II.
Westend is a locality of the Berlin borough Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf in Germany. It emerged in the course of Berlin's 2001 administrative reform on the grounds of the former Charlottenburg borough. Originally a mansion colony, it is today a quite densely settled, still affluent territory adjacent to Berlin's inner city in the east.
The Europa-Center is a building complex on Breitscheidplatz in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, with a shopping mall and a high-rise tower 86 metres (282 ft) tall. Built between 1963 and 1965, by 2003 it had been designated as a historically preserved building.
Matrix is a nightclub in Berlin which opened in 1996. The large-scale discothèque is located at Warschauer Platz 18 in ten basement vaults of the Warschauer Straße railway station. It houses up to nine bars and five dance floors, as well as an outdoor area. The venue has an overall size of 2,100 square meters, and is one of the biggest nightclubs in Berlin. In Germany, the club is known as one of the filming locations of the soap opera Berlin – Tag & Nacht of the channel RTL 2.
Berlin Westkreuz is a station in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin. It is served by the S-Bahn lines S3, S41, S42, S46, S5, S7 and S9 and so represents a major interchange point on the Berlin S-Bahn network. It lies at the opposite end of the Stadtbahn to Ostkreuz and is one of the four main stations on the Ringbahn.
Messe Berlin are exhibition grounds in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf precinct of Berlin, Germany, at Masurenallee opposite the Haus des Rundfunks. Since 2011, they have officially been known as "Berlin ExpoCenter City" and operated by the Messe Berlin GmbH company.
The Fichte-Bunker is a nineteenth-century gasometer in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin, Germany that was made into an air-raid shelter in World War II and subsequently was used as a shelter for the homeless and for refugees, in particular for those fleeing East Berlin for the West. It is the last remaining brick gasometer in Berlin.
Nürnberger Platz was a Berlin U-Bahn station on what is now the U3, located under the square of the same name in Wilmersdorf on the border with Charlottenburg. The station opened on 12 October 1913 and was permanently closed on 1 June 1959.
The Berliner Theatertreffen is a two-week long theatre festival occurring yearly in May in Berlin, Germany. It is organised by the Berliner Festspiele corporation, funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation of Germany.
Berlin International Green Week, also called simply Green Week, is an important international trade fair held annually in Berlin, Germany, for processors and marketers in agriculture, horticulture and various food industries. Green Week traditionally takes place at the beginning of the year in the Messe Berlin exhibition halls under the Funkturm and is open to the general public. In 2010 it had around 400,000 visitors. That same year, the Paris International Agricultural Show had 650,000 visitors.
Knaack was a nightclub in Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin, Germany. It opened in 1952 as a youth club and occasional disco. It then developed during the East German era into a live music venue where many notable German bands played regularly. Gentrification of the surrounding area in the late 2000s led to complaints about the club's noise from residents of newly constructed apartment buildings nearby. A court case resulted, placing restrictions on the noise levels, which the owners judged made the club financially untenable, resulting in its closure on 31 December 2010. After efforts to reopen in another district, the club secured new premises in Prenzlauer Berg and announced in February 2013 that they planned to reopen in 2016. Delays due to construction permits pushed these plans back to 2018. As of 2023 no construction has begun.