The city as stage. The design of the Tenth World Festival of Youth and Students, 1973 in East Berlin
Purple, red, yellow, green, blue: even today, the colours of the rainbow represent diversity, internationalism, and peace, just like they did fifty years ago at the 10th World Festival of Youth and Students, held in East Berlin in 1973.
The festival’s colourful design stood in stark contrast to East Germany’s showcase events of the past, which had relied on red banners, the national flag, and big portraits. This new visual language was created by a design collective from the Weissensee School of Art and Design Berlin. This included Axel Bertram, the graphic designer who laid out the festival’s design guidelines. He updated the traditional festival logo and based his colour palette on it. This can be found in the ‘W’ and ‘B’ logos created by Bertram (standing for ‘World Festival’ and ‘Berlin’) as well as in posters, programme booklets, stage designs, textile items, and temporary architecture. Beyond the 280 participating artists, the festival also called upon the assistance of state enterprises and the general public. An overwhelming number of people responded to the call. The festival’s visual expression proved popular. Across nine summer days, the festival welcomed eight million domestic and international guests to its various political, sporting, and cultural events.
In the early 1970s, the GDR saw various shifts in political culture. New social policies, along with announced plans to open up society and culture, ignited hopes for change. East Germany’s new government used the 1973 World Festival as a political showcase both domestically and internationally. But among the young, the festival developed a momentum of its own, breaking away from the official political rhetoric. During those nine days, many believed that an open and international socialism was really possible—as also promised by the inclusive visual language of the World Festival. But the experience of the World Festival was a utopian promise, one that instead of being fulfilled in subsequent years, the East German government broke.
