The image shows Columbia House in Berlin-Tempelhof, which served as an Officers Club for the US forces in 1955. The factual-modern building body with its characteristic relief panel at the façade corner is clearly visible. In front of the building stand two spacious tour buses bearing the inscription ‘USA’ and US military license plates, which served for personnel transport and leisure activities of the Allied occupation troops. Columbia House symbolizes the permanent military presence of the United States in the western part of the divided city: as a recreational facility for US officers and their families, it embodied the claim of the Western powers to establish West Berlin as a secure and comfortable location. The image thus exemplifies the Allied infrastructure that shaped everyday life in Cold War Berlin of the mid-1950s.