-
Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany. It has a population of
about 3.5 million. Located in a charming lake and woodland area, Berlin has
several world famous sights, three major universities and several other
colleges and research facilities, opera houses, theatres, museums and
libraries. Berlin has a high density of all types of lodging facilities and
the city offers a large variety of cultural events and entertainment.
For the organizer DESY, the conference was a chance to present its site in Zeuthen (South-East of Berlin), which became part of the laboratory in the course of Germany's unification process, and which hosted a HEPiX meeting following CHEP.
The conference organizers initially were lucky enough to have found a conference location in Berlin with an interesting historical background - the Rathaus Schoeneberg at the John-F.-Kennedy-Platz. This orginal location was, unfortunately, damaged by a fire one week before Easter and had to be closed to the public for security reasons. Therefore the new location of the CHEPī97 conference, the Lichtenberger Congress Center in Berlin, was choosen only 5 days before the conference opened.
The change of locations from the former parliament buliding of West-Berlin to the former headquarters of the "Staatssicherheit der DDR (STASI)" in East-Berlin added an interesting historical flavor to the conference topics.
View at the Rathaus Schoneberg. This picture has influenced the design of the CHEP'97 Conference Poster.
