Bertie Alexander pays tribute to one of Berlin’s most venerable – and vibrant – theatres…

With its six limestone pillars, tall, narrow windows and somewhat loomy facade overlooking a section of green lawn, Berlin’s Volksbühne manages to be something of an eye-catcher on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, a square – or rather, a triangle in simple geometric terms – that practically vibrates with history and architecture.

Built between 1913 and 1914 on what was then called Bülowplatz, the theatre was a product of the ‘Frei Volksbühne’ (Free People’s Theatre), a workers’ movement that had been gathering pace since the early 1890s. Their slogan, ‘Die Kunst dem Volke’ (The Art Of The People) reflected their mission: to create a theatre that was not only affordable to the average Berlin worker, but would provide a significant channel for promoting political rights in Imperial Germany.

The original building was designed by Oskar Kaufmann, the architect of the Hebbel-Theatre (now HAU1) in Kreuzberg that had first opened its doors a few years earlier, in 1908. Eschewing the formal elegance of the baroque-style court theatres of the past, the Volksbühne was deliberately tailored to mirror the tastes and needs of a burgeoning working class and booming metropolis, with space in the auditorium for up to 2000 spectators.

The theatre was intended to be one of the first jigsaw pieces in a modernised (and modernist) city centre in previous decades had become part of the overcrowded – and unhealthy -Scheunenviertel, or Jewish quarter. The new designs were heavily promoted by the architect Hans Poelzig, designer of the Kino Babylon located over the street from the Volksbühne, which shares reflected the Kaufmann’s emphasis on light-coloured walls and strip windows.

Although the outbreak of the First World War during the Volksbühne’s inaugural year thwarted the new plans somewhat, Kaufmann’s design was a precursor to the ‘New Objectivity’ wave that was to soon engulf the literature, music and architecture of Weimar Germany, emphasising a practical and business-minded engagement with the world over the romanticism of the expressionists that had flourished towards the end of the 19th Century.

The theatre continued operating throu…