IMD _Institute of Media and Design

copyright _IMD

FIELD TRIP | Fun Palace ICC _Berlin

In May 2023 our institute visited the closed ICC _Internationales Congress Centrum Berlin in the context of our actual Master Thesis FUN PALACE ICC.

We thank Messe Berlin for this rare opportunity to get an impression of the outstanding spatial qualities of this building. An international architectural competition is currently under discussion to explore meaningful conversion and reuse strategies for this building of an, in the meantime very rare 'optimistic modernism'. The ICC sometimes looks more like a space shuttle, designed by Ken Adam, than a building.

During the visit, it became clear that enormous logistical challenges would have to be overcome, since both the structural fire protection and the ventilation technology no longer meet today's requirements. In addition, there may be significant health hazards due to building materials that may no longer be used today.

All in all, this is an almost impossible, at least immensely expensive task. At the same time, the exhibition

THE SUN MACHINE IS COMING DOWN

organized by the BERLINER FESTSPIELE in the year 2021, showed what enormous performative and spatial potential lies dormant in the building, what an astonishing architectural quality could be discovered here.

The ICC would have the potential to inject much more optimism and spirit into Berlin's currently largely despondent and all too uninspired building culture.

Photographs _Matthias Karch

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