In 1988, West Berlin was named European City of Culture, which brought with it a multitude of cultural events and projects. This year was marked by the idea of presenting Berlin as a workshop of the arts, constantly changing and generating new ideas.
A lasting aspect of this title was the emphasis on cultural exchange and cooperation between East and West Berlin, despite the existence of the Wall at the time. This promoted a better understanding and closer connection between the two parts of the city. Capitalism versus communism/socialism – the Wall separated two ideological systems. This was no different in 1987, when the city’s 750th anniversary was celebrated on both sides – with great fanfare. Money (from the federal government) played almost no role in West Berlin.
Another lasting result was the strengthening of Berlin’s cultural infrastructure. Many of the projects and institutions initiated at that time still exist today and contribute to the city’s vibrant cultural scene. // suorce: KI Microsoft Bing
The year of the City of Culture, known as E 88 for short, needed new ideas. Experiments, the unfinished, the unheard of. In 1988, Berlin was to present itself as a WORKSHOP, as a European city of culture that is always in the process of becoming:
- Berlin, a place of the new. “The city’s contribution to the emergence of European modernism in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Karl Scheffler’s dictum from 1910: Berlin’s destiny was ‘to always become and never to be.’ For Berlin, being new was a fundamental characteristic. Mention of the 1920s, the city of revues and hits.”
- Workshop Berlin. “The new arises primarily from encounters, dialogue, debate; knowledge of what is new requires information that is often only possible in encounters. That is why Berlin should not only be a podium, but above all a ‘workshop of the arts’.”
- Rediscovery of Central Europe. “However, 1988 challenges us to offer the city for presentations from Eastern Central Europe.”
source: https://www.tanzimaugust.de/30jahre/berlin-kulturstadt-europas-1988