Admiralspalast

Admiralspalast is a 1,600-capacity theatre on Berlin’s Friedrichstraße, built for spectacle and still shaped around it. Its grand auditorium brings together two balconies, a large stage and chandelier; for selected concerts, the ground-floor seating can be cleared for a standing dance setup. One striking historical detail remains in use: the central box added in 1941 now holds 16 bookable first-class seats.

Ice, revue, reopening

The building opened on 20 April 1911 after the Admirals-Gartenbad was demolished and replaced by a “metropolitan” amusement palace. It contained luxury Russian-Roman baths, a café, bowling lanes, cinema and an indoor ice arena, where ice revues, hockey and boxing shared the bill. In 1922, architects Oskar Kaufmann and Richard Wolffenstein converted the rink into the Art Deco Welt-Varieté; director Herrmann Haller then remade it as the Theatre in the Admiralspalast in 1923.

Its stage later became a setting for German political history: the forced April 1946 merger of the KPD and SPD into the SED took place in the auditorium, marked by Otto Grotewohl and Wilhelm Pieck’s handshake. The Metropoltheater closed on 31 July 1997. Berlin’s Senate elected to retain the complex as a cultural site in 2002, leading to heritage-led renovation and an 11 August 2006 reopening with Klaus Maria Brandauer’s production of The Threepenny Opera.

How the room works now

Expect an all-purpose programme: theatre, musicals, comedy, cabaret, concerts and occasional club-oriented nights share the main stage, with music spanning established international acts, German performers and newer local names. This is strongest for seated headline shows, spoken-word events and productions with theatrical scale. The room can also change character for a dance concert, while the 850-square-metre auditorium offers integrated audio, projection, in-house technical staff, air conditioning and bar foyers on the first and second floors.