SCHAU! – SPIEL! – HAUS!
60 Years +

Pina Bausch Zentrum under construction, Bundesallee 260, Wuppertal

Together with the Pina Bausch Centre Friends’ Association and the BDA (Association of German Architects) Wuppertal, we invite you to looking back to move forward!

“24 September 1966 was a memorable day for Wuppertal and for the German cultural landscape. On that day, more happened than just the opening of the Schauspielhaus. Thanks to Heinrich Böll,” wrote editor-in-chief Lothar Leuschen in the WZ in 2019 to mark the city’s 90th anniversary. “The opening was a thunderclap. The speech by Heinrich Böll, who would later win the Nobel Prize in Literature, was heard far beyond the Wuppertal Schauspielhaus. On 24 September 1966, at the opening of the Gerhard Graubner building, the writer spoke about the freedom of art.”

Timelessly beautiful, looking hopefully to the future, marked by a backlog of renovation work and loved by artists and people from the city and around the world: figures from the worlds of art, society, politics and architecture are discussing its transformation into an interdisciplinary arts and culture venue for dance, the work of Pina Bausch and the art of the future.

14:30 to 15:45 Salon Discussion I

A Space for Encounter – The Architecture of the Graubner Building

An architectural icon of 20th-century democratic history is becoming a space for 21st-century society and a driving force for urban development.

Welcome remarks by Helge Lindh, Member of the German Bundestag and Chair of the Pina Bausch Förderverein e.V.
Keynote address by Prof. Dr. Christoph Grafe
Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Wuppertal
Followed by a salon discussion with
Prof. Dr. Christoph Grafe, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Wuppertal
Susanne Wartzeck, architect, former BDA President, jury member for the international architectural competition for the Pina Bausch Centre
Bettina Milz, Head of the Preliminary Phase for the Pina Bausch Center under construction
Moderator: Markus Rathke, BDA Wuppertal, co-initiator of the Quality Initiative for the City Centre

16:15 to 17:30 Salon Discussion II

A Space for the Art of the Future—The Transformation into the Pina Bausch Centre

Open to All: “Third Place”, “The City’s Cultural Living Room” (Mayor Miriam Scherff) and International Cultural Heritage
Kirsten Haß, Board Member and Administrative Director of the Federal Cultural Foundation
Harald Krassnitzer, Actor
Helge Lindh, Member of the German Bundestag and Chair of the Pina Bausch Förderverein e.V.
Dr. Hagen Lippe-Weißenfeld, Head of the Department of Culture for the City of Wuppertal
Dr. Kati Trempler, Executive Director of Färberei e.V.
Moderator: Olaf Kupfer, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Westdeutsche Zeitung

17:30 “ART MUST GO TOO FAR”

Heinrich Böll's Speech in Wuppertal with Luise Kinner, actress

“No one can tell art how far it may or should have gone; it must therefore go too far to find out how far it may go,” said Heinrich Böll.

Followed at 7:00 p.m. by the premiere of the short film by Jesué Wegener