ARCHITECTURE NEWS -

 

BERLIN PALACE- A GHOST FROM THE PAST TO BE RECONSTRUCTED

 

By Tracy W.

 

In a city full of ghosts, one demolished building will come back to life.  Berlin plans to reconstruct the Stadtschloss - the Kaiser's Palace or Berlin Palace.

For those outside Germany the Stadtschloss - the old Emperor's palace in Berlin - may not mean anything at all.  But that unattractive building once had high emotional meaning for those who held the empire in high esteem, and for its detractors for its symbolic association with the emperors, their Prussian-style autocratic regime, and their wars. 

 

Books have given me vivid images of that palace:  I see the revolutionaries after the First World War gathering outside the palace.  I see Communists and Nationalists clashing with each other. And I see the iconic moment in November of 1918, when Karl Liebknecht, the Communist leader, proclaimed the end of the empire and the birth of the republic from one of the palace balconies.  The Emperor would soon be on the run, and Liebknecht would be murdered by police.  The democratic Weimar Republic would hold on for a while, and eventually the Nazis would rule from 1933 to 1945.  

 

But before that, at the end of the First World War in 1918, soldiers were returning defeated, hungry and enraged against the regime.  More than 1,700,000 German soldiers were killed in that war, more than four million were wounded or crippled.  They were shot during battle, or fell due to the effects of poison gas, cold and starvation.  They had been led into that brutal war by Kaiser Wilhelm II, and now the population wanted him out.

 

Passions ran high in Berlin then, as they would for many years until the end of the Second World War. The palace survived heavy bombardment by the Allies during World War Two, only to succumb to the wrecking ball in September of 1950, under orders from the East German Communist regime. 

 

Curiously, that government decided to preserve the balcony from which Liebknecht had proclaimed the republic.  The rest of the palace was demolished.  The flat empty space was named Marx-Engels Platz, and years later, in the mid-Seventies, the government erected the hideous Palace of the Republic.  In 1989 the Communist regime collapsed, allowing the unification of East and West Germany.  Soon the Palace of the Republic would be torn down as well.

 

Roll forward to today:  Amidst much controversy, Berliners are ready to reconstruct the Kaiser's Palace.   

 

These processes of demolishing and constructing, and demolishing and reconstructing should not be taken lightly.  Modern Germany's history is tortuous and filled with emotional pitfalls.  The Kaiser's Palace - the Communist Palace of the Republic - the Berlin Palace saga reminds us of a family engaged in heavy remodeling and redecorating a house after some unpleasant relatives have moved out or passed on - wanting to exorcise their spirits, and remove vestiges of their presence and activities. 

 

Germany has plenty of ghosts, the Nazi and the Communist regimes being two of them - their most embarrassing and painful nightmares.   This process of exorcism is made all the more difficult due to the conflicted emotions those two periods elicit. 

For the Stadtschloss historical outline with pictures, read here:     
http://berliner-schloss.de/en/the-ancient-berlin-palace/short-architectural-history

DER SPIEGEL'S PERSPECTIVE:  The cornerstone was laid on the reconstruction of the Berlin palace that was once home to Prussian rulers. The need for such a structure is debatable, and funding looks shaky. It could become yet another addition to Germany's collection of cursed construction projects.

The new structure is supposed to look a lot like the old, the seat of Prussian power that was heavily damaged in World War II and completely demolished in 1950 to make way for the Palast der Republik, which housed communist East Germany's parliament.

The East German Palast der Republik was razed from 2006 to 2008 to make way for the Schloss, providing yet more proof in the eyes of former East Berliners that reunification was more of a Western takeover than a marriage between equals.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was not present, reportedly because she wanted to avoid it at all costs. After all, she faces re-election this fall, and the project is highly unpopular among Germans. A recent poll by the news magazine Stern found that almost two-thirds (65 percent) of Germans oppose the project.

For more on today's controversial and expensive plans for the palace's reconstruction, read here:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/berlin-lays-cornerstone-on-controversial-palace-project-a-905366.html

For more information on Germany's worst architectural experiences in the last few years:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/de-meuron-von-gerkan-and-ingenhoven-on-german-construction-headaches-a-905472.html