Maxim-Gorki-Theater

Maxim-Gorki-Theater stands in Berlin-Mitte as a classical building with a long life as both concert hall and theatre. Its facade and interior reflect designs by Carl Theodor Ottmer and Karl Friedrich Schinkel, with balanced proportions and restrained ornament.

The building began as a home for the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, founded by Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch. Between 1825 and 1827, Carl Friedrich Zelter directed the creation of its concert hall. Alexander von Humboldt delivered his Cosmos lectures here, while the hall hosted Felix Mendelssohn’s first revival of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. During the summer of 1848, the Prussian National Assembly met inside these walls. Damage during the Second World War stopped performances, and Soviet forces later used the building as a theatre.

Since 1952, the theatre has focused on Russian and Soviet theatre art, including works by Heiner Müller and Volker Braun. Its earlier concert-hall role and later socialist model-theatre function trace Berlin’s changing cultural history through one address. You can still picture the hall as a place where scientific lectures, sacred music, parliamentary debate and modern drama followed one another.