ORWOhaus

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Yesterday the ORWOhaus celebrated its first “Klang der Ideen”-music festival.
In 1998 free music groups from all over Berlin started to gather in this cheap old GDR-Plattenbau from the eighties. This Plattenbau is located in the Eastberlin quarter Marzahn, which used to be a GDR showcase (see also our work Mahrzipanien). Less than a half-an-hour tramway (streetcar) ride from Berlins center Marzahn is now a quarter with a high density of empty industrial and residential buildings.

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In 2004 the public owner of the haus terminated the lease with the musicians due to failings in fire security. After quite a bit of rallies and fund raising campaigns the community could finally buy the house and raise money for renovation. The whole community was subsequently awarded with a prize…
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Marketing man René Schäfer with the prize

…of the Land-der-Ideen (country of ideas) initiative. This initiative is an official marketing campaign for Germany, intended for displaying the inventiveness of people in Germany (however – I think- this stupid “country-of-ideas”-title is rather displaying the opposite).

The ORWOhaus can host about 200 music bands. Other provisions of services like booking agencies etc. are planned.
Hence the festival yesterday was also a “thank-you”-party. At 35 degrees celsius, with three stages (two of them open air), a beergarden it was a popular place to be and even the radio was there:

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SAE promoting its services

The graphical part of the festival was rather modest, there was not much VJing (at least in the earlier part of the festival, which I attended), but at least there were some fractals on the wall:
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Unfortunately my camera ran out of battery already in the sound check stage:
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papptiger setting up their complicated drum device

…which was not so bad either, as so I couldnt take more fotographs but enjoy the show :).
Best band of what I saw: papptiger a great absurd mixture of country-chanson-rock-hiphopreggae, which they call minirock.

4 Responses to “ORWOhaus”

  1. Achim Wanitschek Says:

    Hallo,

    I’m called Achim and I’m a menber of the management of the ORWOhaus.
    My son is playing drums at papptiger.
    If you ar looking for fotos of the ORWOhaus-festival-I coud help.

    Achim

  2. nad Says:

    Hello Achim,

    are the fotos on the ORWOhaus homepage? I couldnt find them.

    I wouldl certainly llike to link to them! The party was great :-)
    Will it become an annual festival?

    nad

  3. marketing man Says:

    Hello nad,
    I’m René Schäfer. I remember, as you toke the pic of me. Now you can watch fotos at the ORWOhaus.de website, follow this link:
    http://www.orwohaus.de/index.php?spgmGal=2006-07-28_-_Festival-Klang_der_Ideen&spgmFilters=&page=2&subpage=1&color=0

    It would be great if you can share your pics in higher quality (600x450px) with me. I like to add some of them to the ORWOwebsite. You can send me via email, if you like..

    Thanks to you for that nice impressions! The next big festival will be in summer 2007. There we celebrate the renaming of our street to “Frank-Zappa-Straße” (google that term). News about you will find on our Website..

    Best wishes..
    René

  4. nad Says:

    Hello René

    remarkable that you noticed me, since you were quite surrounded by TV cameras and journalists. that was also the reason, why i didnt want to disturb. usually i would have told you for what i take the picture.

    i am actually not so happy with the images. i borrowed the camera, since mine was temporarily unavailable, so i was not used to it. but i will certainly send you the images….might take a bit though.

    when will the actual renaming take place? there seem to be plans for a f-zappa street in spain if google is right…

    super that there will be a festival next summer!

    nad

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