It will be some time before the renovation work begins on the Gasteig – it probably won’t be before 2024. The city hall coalition of the Greens and the SPD therefore called for a concept for temporary cultural use of the rooms last autumn. The Department for Labor and Economics has now developed one, and the city council is to vote on it this Wednesday. The non-public template is available to the SZ. Interim use is possible at least until the end of 2023, it says. Then the general renovation of the cultural center is to be awarded in the investor model.
In the Gasteig there are various rooms of very different sizes: halls, classrooms and practice rooms, library rooms, shop areas, cafeterias, outdoor areas, roof areas. In order to keep the effort at Gasteig München GmbH as low as possible, the department’s proposal envisages assigning the rooms to one or more, but no more than three, main users. This main tenant should then have the opportunity to sublet the rooms up to a limit to be determined. The department proposes two options for the conditions: in addition to renting at seven euros per square meter, there is also free use. Both should apply to cultural uses; in the case of commercial use, a turnover lease should also be paid in addition to a minimum rent.
The University of Music and Theater and the adult education center will continue to rent space in their areas until the end of temporary use. Urban uses, such as festivals, should be granted a pre-booking right. During these periods, the temporary users have to do without the respective areas. The areas currently used by the health department, such as for the vaccination center and the contact tracing team, are also not available for temporary cultural use until further notice. These uses are planned until the end of 2022, with the option of extending them until the end of 2023. The department assumes costs of between 5.2 and 6.7 million euros for the interim use, depending on which option is chosen for the rental prices.
Gasteig München GmbH is to make the available areas known. Bidders should have the opportunity to submit projects and plans including a financing model by a specified date. During the announcement there should be viewing appointments, especially for the independent scene. A jury is to select the projects and plans according to several specified criteria. The focus of the interim use should be on rehearsals by musicians and the development of productions. According to the template, the award procedure should start “immediately” so that the interim uses can start as soon as possible.
How is the hall used? The green-red town hall coalition will have questions about the Philharmonie in the town council.
(Photo: Florian Peljak)
What is missing in the template, however: the Philharmonie. How to use this hall, the heart of the Gasteig, will definitely be a topic in the general assembly, as can be heard from the green-red town hall coalition. The motion by the Greens and the SPD was aimed explicitly at interim uses for the entire building. So there could be an additional application – and the tour operator industry is also demanding one. “The Philharmonie should be part of the concept and that has to happen quickly,” says Andreas Schessl, head of the large classical music organizer Münchenmusik. However, Gasteig insiders have a lot of concerns. It is very expensive to continue operating the Philharmonie in its current state, it is an energy guzzler, fire protection flaps have to be urgently replaced, the vaccination center would then have to move as a tenant from the areas in the foyer, technical staff could not be found in the tense situation, and especially in its first season, there are fears that it will compete with the Isarphilharmonie.
In a “culture-interested city like Munich” there could well be two large halls, especially since these would have to be filled and used after the renovation, countered Schessl. He only wanted to offer concerts in the old Philharmonie that did not compete with the program in the Interim Hall. However, he or other organizers should not incur any costs for the upgrade: “There must be supportive goodwill from the city so that it can be managed,” says the organizer. It is the task of the administration “to provide the infrastructure to give the cultural scene the opportunity to develop further – then a city can only win”.