Wintergarten in Berlin / Germany

 

The Wintergarten in Berlin has never been a cinema - but plays an important role in the history of cinema. Here were showed moving pictures to a paying audience on 1 November 1895. This was shortly before the public debut of the Lumière Brothers' Cinématographe in Paris on 28 December 1895. 

The short films were shown by Max and Emil Skladanowsky with their invented Bioscop (or Bioskop) - an early movie projector. But the technology and quality of Skladanowsky's devices and the demonstrations weren't so good as other inventors already practicing at the same time. The Bioscop needed two film strips, which meant a considerable additional technical effort compared to the usual principle with only one film strip, such as that successfully used by the Lumiéres.

The brothers Skladanowsky traveled through Europe with their invention in 1896 and 1897. The word from their projector become the term for the word cinema in Serbia (Bioskop), the Netherlands (Bioscoop) and the former Dutch colony Indonesia (Bioskop).

The Wintergarten itself was originally a large winter garden in the 1881 opened Central-Hotel in the center of Berlin. Since 1887, this place became the number one address for variety shows in Berlin and Germany. The building was destroyed in World War II. 

In 1992, a theatre in Potsdamer Strasse - not far away from the old place - was opened with the name Wintergarten. As written on the homepage, they want to continue the tradition of the old Wintergarten variety. The postcard shows the new Wintergarten advertising the Rock variety show Forever Young in 2012.

I got this postcard via Postcrossing from Tiny. Danke, Tiny.