Lessing Theater
 |
|
| Location | Berlin, Germany |
|---|---|
| Genre(s) | Theatre |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1888 |
| Demolished | 1945 |
| Architect |
Hermann von der Hude Julius Hennicke |
| Project manager | Oscar Blumenthal |
The Lessing Theater was a theatre in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany. It opened in 1888 and was destroyed in April 1945 in a bombing raid; its ruins were demolished after World War II.
The construction of the theatre, for around 900,000 Mark, was especially notable since it was the first new theatre built in Berlin since the construction of the Wallner Theater in 1864; in between only renovations of old theatres and existing spaces had taken place. By order of director Oscar Blumenthal, the building, designed in a Renaissance Revival style by the architects Hermann von der Hude and Julius Hennicke, was constructed in less than a year, between October 1887 and September 1888. The theatre opened on 11 September 1888, staging Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's drama Nathan the Wise.
The oddly angled piece of land, the site of former Circus Krembser, was located in the historic Friedrich-Wilhelm-Stadt quarter, at the corner of Friedrich-Karl-Ufer 1 (since 1951: Kapelle-Ufer) on the Spree riverside and Unterbaumstraße. Wedged between the Stadtbahn railway viaduct and the firewall of the building nextdoor, it made for a difficult design of a prestigious building. The architects designed a cupola above the podium that covered up the firewall, and the front facade with its portico turned the street corner into a kind of vestibule. The remaining triangular outside areas were set off from the street with lattice work and gates and functioned as gardens; the remaining area in the back served as delivery courtyard.
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