UCI Kinowelt Zoo Palast
Hardenbergstrasse 29a, Charlottenburg,
Berlin
10623
Hardenbergstrasse 29a, Charlottenburg,
Berlin
10623
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Opened as the ‘Bikino’ with 2 screens – the smaller one carrying the name ‘Atelier am Zoo’. The larger one is the ‘Zoo Palast’, traditional site of the Berlinale Film Festival between 1957 and 1999. The large 1,204-seat Zoo Palast auditorium opened on 28th May 1957 with “Die Zurcher Verlobung”. There were three sets of curtains; an orange main curtain, a Persian red ‘Premiere’ curtain, and a sky blue festoon (waterfall) curtain, when raised revealed a 10x20 metres wide seamless, metalised, Harkness wide screen. The cinema was equipped with three Ernemann-X projectors. The auditorium walls were lined with Mahogany wood paneling. The 550-seat Atelier am Zoo auditorium downstairs opened the following day with Burt Lancaster in “The Rainmaker”, presented in VistaVision.
It was for many years the highest grossing cinema in Germany with an average of more than 10,000 visitors per week.
In later years, seven smaller auditoriums were converted from other spaces in adjoining buildings. These had seating capacities for 184, 221, 95, 83, 352, 154 and 154. Taken over by UCI in 1994, it was renovated.
In October 2009, the cinema and surrounding buildings were sold to a Munich based property development company, stating they would retain the cinema, but demolish other surrounding buildings. The UCI Kinowelt Zoo Palast was closed on 31st December 2010, and was boarded up ready for re-development of the site. In August 2011 the buildings on each side of the cinema August 2011 (containing the additional screens) were demolished.
Plans are to retain the two original auditoriums and build five new ones on the newly developed surrounding land. Re-opening is set for September 2012.
Contributed by
Robert Burger, Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 12 comments)
This cinema premiered “Madeleine und der Legionär”,according to
http://www.deutscher-tonfilm.de/mudl1.html
Zoo-Palast opend with the comedy “Die Zürcher Verlobung” (Getting Engaged in Zürich/The Affairs of Julie)
in April 1957. It is one of the most interesting cinemas of the fifties in Germany. Close to the station “Bahnhof Zoologischer Garten” it is right in the heart of West Berlin. Although there are shops in the front, everybody would identify it as a cinema.
It seated 1204, is built in stadium style with steps and a slightly oval shape. You enter a big lobby
with stairs on both sides going up to the cinema. The screen and stage is just behind the front.
Nowadays it has lost a lot of its glory. It is sadly refurbished and the front needs new paint.
When I visited it first in 1979, the seats were yellow. There was a oval ceiling with indirect lighting.
Walls were mostly made of wood. I went to the Bond movie “Moonraker” at a saturday night with
a lively and packed house.
Now they changed colours, installed pink seats, painted the ceiling white. Indirect lighting is gone,
the auditorium is sadly lighted, almost dark. The cinema and even the lobby and the big stairs are spoiled by poor looking floral design carpets. The worst thing is that they installed a smaller screen. The former one was about 20 meters long and 8 meters high and only slightly curved.
There were plans to destroy it, build shops or smaller cinemas into its shape, but it’s already destroyed
by the current owners. In former years it was saved by the Berlin film festival (“Berlinale”) which now
takes place in ordinary multiplexes.
An exterior view of the Zoo Palast in 2004:
View link
Here is a closeup view of the Zoo Palast.
A view across the Hardenbergstrasse:
http://flickr.com/photos/mr_simon/74380784/
Another shot from 1994 here:–
View link
More infos and photographs on this theater (and many others) can be found on the German language only Berlin Movie Theater Guide – www.kinokompendium.de: Zoo Palast
This is a recent view of the Zoo Palast.
Here is another photo:
http://tinyurl.com/32kxnh
phtots taken april 2009
exterior
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3484355616/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3483532645/
outer lobby and box offices
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3484351806/
a 1970’s postcard i found in a fleamarket in Berlin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/3546906692/