Berlin’s International Congress Center (Internationales Congress Centrum Berlin) opened in 1979 and closed in 2014. From the outside it looks futuristic with its aluminum facade in the high-tech style of the 1970s. Inside it reveals lots of retro charm. With a length of 1,050 feet long, a width of 262 feet wide and a height of 131 feet, the International Congress Center can accommodate slightly more than 20,000 guests. A bridge links the “ICC” to the exhibition grounds across the street, the Messe Berlin. For 25 years, the International Congress Center made Berlin the No. 1 congress city in Germany and maybe even one of the top congress cities in the world.
Berlin’s International Congress Center (ICC), opened in 1979 and closed in 2014. When and if it reopens again remains uncertain. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2019. www.walled-in-berlin.com
Why West Berlin constructed an International Congress Center
At the end of the 1960s, Berlin was a divided city with West Berlin a capitalist island surrounded by a Communist sea. When experts predicted a steady increase in the number of conventions and trade shows held around the world, West Berlin jumped on the band wagon. It wanted to boost its economy, and congress centers can be a profitable source of income. Until then, West Berlin had hosted such events in its 1957 Congress Hall (Kongresshalle), which barely seated 1,200 participants. With a new and much larger International Congress Center, West Berlin hoped to redefine itself as a congress destination. Besides, East Berlin had built the Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik) only three years earlier, and the West wanted to keep up. The ICC became the most expensive construction project in West Berlin since World War II, costing almost one billion marks.
Design Competition for the International Congress Center
In 1966, West Berlin held a design competition for the new congress center. Ralf Schueler and Ursulina Schueler-Witte, a young and relatively unknown husband-and-wife architect team, won the contest. Construction began in 1975. It was six years after the first moon landing, and the space-age may have influenced the design. The ultramodern building soon became known in West Berlin as the “spaceship.” Nonetheless, the design was a complete success. It received many awards. At its grand opening in 1979, German President Walter Scheel predicted that the ICC would still stand when the Pyramid of Cheops had decayed.
Asbestos-contaminated ICC and Palace of the Republic
Mr. Scheel may have been correct in assuming that the ICC’s concrete design might outlast the Pyramid of Cheops, but he was unaware of the dangers of asbestos. In 2014, the International Congress Center closed for asbestos removal, but the costs turned out to be prohibitive. The Palace of theRepublic in East Berlin, which had opened in 1976, was equally contaminated. While the latter was demolished in 2006 to give way to the construction of the Stadtschloss Berlin (Berlin City Place), the International Congress Center didn’t close to conventions until 2014. Aside from housing refugees between 2015 and 2017, it continues to remain closed while officials argue over who will foot the bill for asbestos removal and needed upgrades and how the center might be used in the future.
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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
