Media

The Haus des Rundfunks, an Expressionist-style building, has, for nearly 80 years, epitomized the history of Berlin, its tragedy and redemption. Today it is an international center for broadcasting and training, most particularly in radio documentary, along with visual and computer media. But its exemplary reputation is hard-earned, for during nearly a quarter-century the Haus des Rundfunks was under National Socialist or Soviet control.

Heinrich Böll, Patricia Highsmith and the Haus des Rundfunks

Slide show about the Haus des Rundfunks (27 images)

During the 1950s, the German and Nobel Prize writer Heinrich Böll wrote a short story called “Murke’s Collected Silences,” (“Doktor Murkes gesammeltes Schweigen”) about a radio producer who collects bits of discarded tape recordings that have nothing but silence on them. This fictional character works in an unusual building that has unique doorless elevators, which he rides endlessly. Meanwhile, the 2002 film “Ripley’s Game,” based on Patricia Highsmith's novel and starring John Malkovich, features a dramatic chase scene, during which pursuers and the pursued burst into a recording studio and disrupt a chamber orchestra. In both instances, the venue is Berlin’s iconic Haus des Rundfunks, or Broadcast House, now the headquarters of the RBB public radio station (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg).

People

Hans Poelzig (1869-1936)
Expressionist and International Style architect. Poelzig designed industrial buildings, and also large studio sets for the 1920 silent film The Golem: How He Came Into the World (1920). He also created the huge I.G. Farben building in Frankfurt am Main, which is now the Poelzig Building at Frankfurt’s Goethe-Universität. After the Allied invasion at the end of World War II, this structure became General Eisenhower's headquarters and was in American hands until 1995.

Peter-Leonhard Braun
One of the pioneers of radio feature production. Beginning in the 1960s, Braun used stereo ambience to define a new style of documentary--the "feature": a form that allows sound to "speak" for itself, without description, and thereby, through text and acoustic texture, make reportage as powerful as drama or music. Leo Braun has also been instrumental in the creation of international media gatherings: the International Feature Conferences (1975-on); the Prix Futura and the Prix Europa Festivals.

Helmut Krüger (1905-1996)
Recording engineer and inventor of two-channel stereo tape recording (Krüger was nicknamed by his radio colleagues “Krüger-Krüger,” in witty reference to his innovative left-and-right-channel stereo recording technique).

Wolfgang Bauernfeind
Director, Feature-Department RBB, since 1994. Bauernfeind has produced approximately 300 feature productions, winning 40 national and international prizes. In addition, he has conducted feature workshops for the Media Academy of ARD and ZDF German public broadcasting and for the Goethe-Institut in numerous countries, including Cameroon, Ghana, Togo, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Poland, and the United States.

Alex van Oss
Alex van Oss: American radio producer. 1977-79 WBFO-Buffalo; 1979-1989 NPR's Options in Education, All Things Considered, Performance Today programs; 1990-1998 Monitor Radio; 1998-2002, reporter/correspondent/editor for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered, Performance Today programs, NPR Cultural desk; 2002-present, soundscapes, features, and other independent projects.
alex_van_oss@hotmail.com

Read more background information about the themes.

• Feature
• Haus des Rundfunks
• International Feature Conference
• Prix Europa
• SFB (Sender Freies Berlin)
• Stereophony