Zoo Palast

A Berlin jewel built in 1957 from designs by Paul Schwebes (1902–78) , Hans Schoszberger (1907–97) and Gerhard Fritsche (1916–65), whose modern two-screen cinema replaced the war-destroyed movie palace that lay dormant between 1943 and 1955 and which ranked as Germany's largest throughout the 1920s. Between 1957 and 1999 the Zoo Palast hosted the main competition of the Berlinale. But the cinema closed in 2011, then reopened in 2013, transformed by architect Anna Maske, with the original two auditoriums — including the grand space, now with 781 seats — restored to their former glory and five new screens added. Located very close to the Tiergarten, the zoo and the newfangled concept mall Bikini Berlin [see entry] , this is a great and comfortable and luxuriant cinema whose one drawback is its dubbing of all English-language films. Tisk tisk.