Hans Otto Theater

Potsdam waited a long time for a new theatre. The Royal Theatre (Königliches Schauspielhaus), opened in 1795 beside the town canal, burned out on 25 April 1945 after heavy shelling, and its ruin was blown up in 1966. A new theatre planned in 1985 had reached the shell stage when it was demolished in 1991. The company then played in a temporary hall on the Alter Markt, nicknamed the Blechbüchse (the "tin can"), which was meant to last five years and remained its main stage for fourteen, until June 2006. The company has carried the name of the actor Hans Otto since 1952.

Gottfried Böhm came into the story in 1995, when he beat thirteen rivals in the competition for a new theatre on the Schiffbauergasse, on a plot close to the present site. In 1999 the city decided to build on the Schiffbauergasse itself and gave him the commission. Ground was broken in April 2003 and the foundation stone laid in October; the topping-out was celebrated in September 2004. The building, first called the Neues Theater and now the Großes Haus, was inaugurated from 22 to 24 September 2006; it cost 26.5 million euros. It is the work of Gottfried Böhm and his son Paul; another son, Stefan, also took part.

The theatre stands at the tip of the Schiffbauergasse peninsula on the Tiefer See, away from the centre, in a former barracks and gasworks area. Its plan is shaped like a slice of cake: the point docks onto the old gasometer, and the building then widens into two wings holding the offices, all the workshops, the costume department, the canteen and the management. Between them sit the backstage and main stage, the auditorium and the foyer, beneath projecting roofs turned towards the lake. The building has a gross floor area of 9,500 square metres.

Three bright red shells, visible from afar, make it a landmark. The lowest covers the foyer, which opens onto the Havel landscape through a glazed façade; the two others cover the auditorium, into which daylight can be let as each performance requires. The foyer looks across the Tiefer See, a widening of the Havel, to the park of Babelsberg palace.

When the theatre opened in 2006, the shells served inside only for the spotlights and as a walkway for the lighting crew, and the auditorium could be seen from the foyer through a double glass wall. The wall of the old gasometer had been kept and, fitted with a gate, served as a delivery yard for the backstage; the handrails were made of railway rails, the ceilings and floors of raw concrete and the structure of exposed steel, in blacks and reds that recalled locomotive sheds. The building's artworks are by Markus, another of Böhm's sons.

The Großes Haus is the main stage of the Hans Otto Theater, the theatre of the city of Potsdam, the state capital; its auditorium seats 485. The glazed foyer also hosts matinées, readings, introductions to productions, discussions with the audience and special events. The theatre also has an open-air summer stage on the shore of the Tiefer See.

The theatre offers public guided tours on regular dates, covering the architecture and the workshops behind the scenes: stage machinery, carpentry, the paint shop and the costume store; private tours can be arranged on request for groups of ten or more. The Großes Haus is at Schiffbauergasse 11.

The main entrance is step-free, with two automatic doors at the Großes Haus, and a lift serves the glazed foyer and the upper stalls; wheelchair spaces should be booked at the box office at least a day ahead.