Bernd M. Scherer New Director of Berlin’s House of World Cultures

Berlin, Germany – Dr. Bernd M. Scherer is the new Director of the House of World Cultures effective January 1, 2006. Scherer holds a doctoral degree in Philosophy from the Universität des Saarlandes and is author of several publications focussing on aesthetics and international cultural exchange. He comes to the House of World Cultures from the Goethe Institute, where he served as Director of the Goethe Institute Mexico from 1999 through 2004 and subsequently as Director of the Arts Department for the Head Office in Munich. Previously, Scherer headed the Department of Humanities and Culture at the House of World Cultures and also served as its Deputy Director. The start of his directorship thus represents a return to an institution in which he from 1994-1999 played a decisive role with respect to organizational and artistic development.Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media Bernd Neumann welcomed Scherer as
follows: “The House of World Cultures is one of the best cultural ambassadors
Germany has and enjoys a worldwide reputation as a meaningful forum for
international co-operation in the arts and culture. Dr. Scherer has earned an
outstanding reputation at home and abroad as a source of creativity, activity
and new ideas and I wish him every success for the start of his directorship.”

In particular, Scherer welcomes the opportunity to continue the “thematic and
artistic development of an institution, which because of globalisation and
developments in places such as Asia and the Islamic World increasingly also
belongs in the centre of national discussion concerning questions pertaining to
German society.”

Scherer assumes the Directorship of the House of World Cultures from Dr. Hans-Georg
Knopp, who became General Secretary of the Goethe Institute on August 1, 2005.