Art: Stage for Freedom

A short stroll from the gutted hulk of Berlin’s old Reichstag one blustery day last week, a young German girl stepped resolutely forward, smashed a bottle of German wine against a brand-new building set on the banks of the River Spree, proclaimed in a clear voice. “I christen you the Congress Hall in memory of Benjamin Franklin.” Thus was opened Berlin’s newest and most venturesome building, a joint project of the U.S., the West German government and the city of Berlin. Designed as a cultural center where plays, music, debates and symposiums will be held, the new structure has a 1,260-seat auditorium, conference halls and restaurant. It was not only a new outpost for freedom of speech in the cold war, but the most talked-about structure in Berlin.

“This hall is dedicated to one of the great freedoms—freedom of expression,” said its designer, U.S. Architect Hugh Stubbins, 45. “Its form was inspired by an attempt to express that great purpose.” To capture the ideal in concrete and steel, Architect Stubbins designed a thin concrete shell roof slung between two bowed-out arches, set underneath as a stabilizer a multipurpose auditorium that by his own admission looked “like a teacup on stilts.”

Berliners had other names for it. Watching the structure grow, they jokingly dubbed it “the Dulleseum,” and compared it to a “hooded owl peeking over a fence” or “a pregnant butterfly.” But once completed, the daring structure, with its gleaming white concrete roof, soft rose and blue walls, got rave reviews. Der Tag called it “a symphony of colors and forms”; the Socialist Telegraf headlined the news, WONDER BUILDING AT THE SPREE; BERLIN’S NEW SYMBOL.

As a housewarming present, the U.S. sponsored the Congress Hall’s first week’s program: dedication ceremony with speeches by Clare Boothe Luce and Ambassador David K. Bruce, a Julliard String Quartet concert, a performance by Dancer Martha Graham, and seven American one-act plays. The show was pulling East Berliners over the border. And so was the new Congress Hall itself, along with the nearby Hansa district housing projects by such designers as Brazil’s Oscar Niemeyer, U.S. Architect Walter Gropius and Finland’s Alvar Aalto (TIME, April 30, 1956). Using the new buildings as the site for a summer-long architectural fair, West Berliners had already attracted 725,000 visitors, including one group of 33 Polish architects, proved that in the struggle for Berlin good architecture is a good weapon.