The Collegium Hungaricum is being built at the same site it stood before it was destroyed in WWII, at Dorotheenstrasse 12, Director András Masát told the Hungarian News Agency. Construction started in March, at the beginning of Ungarischer Akzent, the 18-month-long Hungarian cultural season in Germany. Now that the structure is completed, only the infrastructure must still be installed. The Collegium Hungaricum is slated to open its doors in November, at the end of Ungarischer Akzent.
Minister of Education and Culture István Hiller and his German counterpart Bernd Neumann will attend the ceremony on Friday. Before the event, Hiller will deliver a lecture at a conference entitled Cultural and Creative Economy in Europe. After the ceremony, he will bestow the title Ambassador of Hungarian Culture on the Hungarian writer and Nobel laureate Imre Kertész, who lives in Berlin. The title was awarded for the first time in January, but Kertész was unable to attend the ceremony in Budapest because of ill health. The others who received the title were Lady Valerie Solti, László Fehér, Iván Fischer, Zoltán Kocsis and Márta Sebestyén.
The Collegium Hungaricum was established in 1924. Its first home was in Marienstrasse, but it moved to the Herz Palace in 1926. The palace was bombed and the Collegium Hungaricum shut down in 1945. In 1973, the Collegium Hungaricum was reestablished in a rented building in the centre of the former East Berlin. The building, dubbed Haus Ungarn, has operated as the Hungarian cultural centre in Berlin ever since.
In 1997, the Hungarian government purchased the site of the former Herz Palace and made plans to build a structure which would merge Bauhaus style with modern functions. However, a tender to build the Collegium Hungaricum was not called until 2003. It was won by the German firm of Schweger Assoziierte Gesamtplanung.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
