Sophiensæle

Sophiensæle, 2025, Foto: Raisa Galofre

Event venue of the 7th Berlin Biennale

Exhibition venue of the 13th Berlin Biennale

Since its founding in 1996, Sophiensæle has been one of the most important production houses for the independent performing arts scene in Berlin and beyond. For the 13th Berlin Biennale, the building that houses today’s Sophiensæle will become a “blueprint for Berlin”, exemplifying the history of the city over the course of the 20th century. It not only tells of the rise of social democratic forces and workers’ associations and their destruction by the National Socialist dictatorship, but also of the redevelopment of democratic principles and the occupation of spaces in the center of the city by artists. Built between 1904 and 1905 as a craftsmen’s clubhouse, the building was originally dedicated to the education of workers, but soon developed into a meeting place for the revolutionary Left. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, Erich Mühsam and Clara Zetkin spoke here; and it was here that Erich Mühsam warned against the rise of fascism in Germany in the early 1920s. After the NSDAP came to power, the craftsmen’s association was hastily banned and the clubhouse closed. A few years later, the rooms of the Sophiensæle–mainly the Festsaal–were misused during the Nazi dictatorship as a forced labor camp to produce propaganda leaflets for the fascist regime. Traces of this can still be seen on the walls of Sophiensæle today.

In the years of the GDR, the workshops and painting rooms of the Maxim Gorki Theater moved into the space, before Sophiensæle was rethought as an independent theater in the autumn of 1996 by Sasha Waltz and Jochen Sandig together with Jo Fabian and Dirk Cieslak–a place by artists for artists. Since then, Sophiensæle has been presenting the diversity of contemporary performing arts beyond genre boundaries, including established positions as well as up-and-coming artists, local as well as international perspectives.