Berliner Schloss Post Ed 11

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It´s now all systems go!

by Manfred Rettig The start of summer 2012 was an important day for Berlin. 21st June 2012 saw the groundbreaking ceremony for the reconstruction of Berlin Palace. Among those present were Peter Ramsauer, Federal Minister of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs, Bernd Neumann, Minister of State for Culture and Media in the Federal Chancellery, Klaus Wowereit, Governing Mayor of Berlin and Manfred Retting of the Berlin Palace Humboldt Forum Foundation. Their hands, mine and several others pushed the ceremonial start button. A huge drill then began to bore a hole, forty metres deep, for the palace’s first foundation pile.

Now, with Berlin Palace being rebuilt, what is being created is more than just the heart of the German capital in all its former glory. As the Humboldt Forum the palace, along with Museum Island, will become a new fascinating centre in the middle of Berlin, showcasing the world’s cultures and art forms from ancient times to the present day.

The Berlin Palace - Humboldt Forum Foundation is the commissioning organisation for this the

The palace has many fathers: (l. to r.) Klaus Wowereit, Mayor of Berlin, Dr Peter Ramsauer, Federal Minister of Urban Development, Bernd Neumann, Minster of State for Culture, architect Franco Stella and chairman Manfred Rettig.

greatest cultural construction project in Germany and will be the subsequent proprietor of the Humboldt Forum. The foundation was set up three years ago pursuant to a resolution of the German Bundestag. It coordinates the interests of the project’s partners: the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Berlin Central and

State Library and Berlin Humboldt University.

“With the foundation works getting underway it really is now all system go for the Berlin Palace Humboldt Forum,” stressed Federal Buildings Minister Dr. Peter Ramsauer. He was fully behind the project, as “the Berlin Palace will be

We are looking forward to your visit at

the cultural calling card for all Germany!” Minister of State Bernd Neumann emphasises that “after many years of planning and preparations an important milestone has been reached on the path towards rebuilding Berlin Palace as the Humboldt Forum.” He stressed: “Berlin Palace will in future be immensely significant as a place of cultural interaction and international dialogue in the heart of Berlin.” The Governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, thanked “everybody involved and all those who have worked on the project for many years for their tireless commitment. Berlin thanks the State, without whose support this building could not be financed.”

Everything is going to plan. The archaeological works have been finished. The cellar and foundation remains for the Archaeological Window have been filled in again with sand as a protective measure. Before work begins on the tunnel for the extension of the U5 underground line, which will run under the palace site, the ground needs to be compacted. Construction trench walls are currently being produced and the first bored

www.berliner-schloss.de

piles inserted in the area around the Archaeological Window. The foundation stone for the Berlin Palace - Humboldt Forum is due to be laid by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in May 2013. Last October, Federal President Hans Joachim Gauck took over as patron of the project, thus giving it particular high-profile status. Together with the ongoing upgrading and renovation of the museum buildings on Museum Island, what is unfolding here is Germany’s the most important cultural project of the 21st century. It can rightly be said that it’s now all systems go!

By the end of 2015 the basic construction of the palace should already be finished. It will be ready for the partners to move in by the end of 2017 and the official opening is planned for 2019, possibly on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Wall – thus capping off the reunification process. In terms of its cityscape the palace heals Berlin’s heart, which was stripped of its soul by the GDR with its dynamite, and makes the city once again the complete architectural work of art that gained it such fame before the War.

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News

Dreams come true!

Contents News:

by Wilhelm von Boddien

Pages 1 + 2

The Berliner Schloss:

Pages 3 – 8 The new Berliner Schloss-Humboldtforum: Pages 9 – 16 Reconstruction and modern age:

Pages 17 – 23 The reconstruction of the Schloss-Façades:

Pages 24 – 30

This page shows you pictures of people at work on a building site.

They are pictures that I have dreamt about for decades. Pictures such that when I look at them I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s no longer a dream, but indeed present-day reality - a feeling not dissimilar to when the Wall came down in 1989.

Construction of the palace began on 21st June. The press and numerous dignitaries were in attendance.

The symbolic push of the big round button started the drill going. This is now creating dozens of drill holes in

The Humboldtforum:

Pages 31 – 39 Public Relations:

Pages 40 – 44 Donations:

Pages 45 – 47

Pressing the button.

Now it depends on you!

Page 48

Shots of the building site.

the building site of up to 40 metres in length. They get stabilised with reinforced steel cores and are then filled with concrete and compacted. Bored pile after bored pile is thus being produced. A rectangle of such piles, positioned closely together, serves to stabilise the historic cellar on the southwest side of the palace, which, as a partially walk-through archaeological window, will remind visitors of the lost past. These piles will ultimately support the new Berlin Palace - Humboldt Forum in this area.

After the ground has been compacted over the remaining area the palace’s new base slab will be laid there. The base plate of the former Palace of the Republic will be retained. It is much lower in the ground than that of the palace, which, as before, will have just one basement level. In the ground below the new palace there will thus soon be two foundation stones: that of the Palace of the Republic and that of the new Humboldt Forum, which is likewise

designed to be a building that serves deed getting close to the e 24 million the people. That too is symbolic of mark. But this wonderful figure still the new Berlin! falls way short of what is needed: After over twenty years of at times every euro that comes in now is imheated argument and counter-argu- mensely important and doubly valument we have reached our objective able, as the reconstruction work on – and the community of palace sup- the façade elements is in full swing – porters now numbers tens of thou- and the need for money is constantly sands of people from all over Ger- rising. Please therefore join us and do many and abroad as well, from as far what you can to help! away as America.

However, there is still a great deal to do – for the reconstruction of the palace façades we need to successfully raise e 80 million in donations. We have – especially considering the intense debate surrounding the palace – already been very successful and are now in- 40-metre steel cores for the bored piles.

Your reconstruction – webcam: www.berliner-schloss.de

The Berliner Schloss

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The Schloss, situated on the Spreeinsel [River Spree Island] represented Berlin as a whole.

»The Schloss did not lie in Berlin – Berlin was the Schloss« (Statement by Wolf Jobst Siedler)

Berlin city center, 1937, photographed from the Siegessäule [Victory Column] on the Grosse Stern [Great Star Circle]. The Schloss dominates the center of the city. It stretches from the left side of the picture to the right below the tower of the Rathaus [Town Hall], with its southwest corner in the center and onward with the Apothekenflügel [Pharmacy Wing] almost to the Berliner Dom [Berlin Cathedral]. As the Schloss was ten meters higher than the buildings surrounding it, it towered above the houses on Unter den Linden [Under the Lime-Trees].

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verywhere in Europe, capital cities existed before their palaces. All large cities in Europe can well be imagined without their palaces.

In Rome, for example, one cannot decide which of the many piazzas should be considered its city center.

Paris had already been in existence for more than 1500 years before the Bourbons built the Palais des Tuileries and the Louvre. The city is identified with much more than the central palace and its surroundings. In 2000 year old London, the present day governmental quarter and Buckingham Palace arose about 150 years ago. It was in the 19th century that the monarchy transferred its ancient seat from the Tower of London to this area.

The Schloss, founded in 1443, is almost as old as the city itself. It was the starting point for the real development of this urban area. At that time the twin cities of Berlin and Cölln had just 6000 inhabitants - a small, village-like town in the midst of the impoverished Mark of Brandenburg. „Andreas Schlüter, the Schloss’s cre-

Berlin’s old city center: Schloss, Berliner Dom [Berlin Cathedral], Museumsinsel [Museum’s Island], and the Zeughaus [Arsenal] as symbols of state authority, religion, culture, and valor are grouped around the Lustgarten [Pleasure Garden] (left). View of the Schlossfreiheit [Palace’s Free Traders’ Street] (right).

In 1950, Richard Hamann, the Professor of the Art History Institute of Berlin’s Humboldt University, emphasized fighting the demolition of the Berliner Schloss:

”Berlin is poor in monuments of the past, but it has a work that is worthy to rank with the greatest ones of the past. This work is mentioned and depicted in books on art history all over the world: The Berliner Schloss.“

ator, was the greatest sculptor and architect in northern Germany. There it stands, with a fascinating power and monumentality, an example of the unique North German Baroque, worthy to stand alongside Michelangelo’s St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and the Louvre in Paris.

The Schloss dominated the center of Berlin, the square that was created for it, and the streets that led to it. It is the very essence of Berlin for those who would like to see Berlin’s past recreated”.

Johannes Stroux, President of the Academy of Science in Berlin, expanded: „A powerful seriousness is expressed by the city side of the Schloss, while a relaxed solemnity and open gracefulness reign over the garden side. After Eosander’s expansion, the Schloss’s front was turned toward the west from its previous position toward the south.

Now, together with the former Zeughaus [Arsenal] and the Oper Unter den Linden [Opera under the LimeTrees], the Schloss constituted a monumental city core, that only a few other cities had.

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The Berliner Schloss

The façade of Schloss’s westside, designed by the architect Johann Eosander von Göthe, with the Triumphbogen [Triumphal Arch] modeled after the Arch of Septimius Severus in Rome.

The dome was built in 1851 by Friedrich August Stüler based on a design by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the famous Prussian architect.

”If the Berliner Schloss is destroyed, we will lose one of the most creative architectural works of art that the world can still call its own, today, after so much has been lost. From the time around the turn of the 17th to 18th century, there are few buildings in Europe that can surpass this edifice in its power and its façade treatments with their vivid sculptural clarity.“ Statement made by Prof. Dr. Ernst Gall, Director-General of the Prussian and Bavarian ­Palace Authorities, in 1950.

The front, facing the garden, from the northeast, with Eosander’s Portal [Gate] IV

The Courtyard, designed by Andreas Schlüter, North Gate I.

The Schlosshof [Courtyard], designed by Andreas Schlüter, North Gate V. The front, facing the city, from the southeast, with the majestic Portalen [Gates] I and II

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The Berliner Schloss

Why Berlin Palace needs to be rebuilt for the sake of the urban fabric in the city centre

by Prof. Dr. Manfred Klinkott

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ollowing lengthy debate, the decision to reconstruct Berlin Palace in its outer form has now been taken, yet murmurings of displeasure and vehement, often polemic criticism of the project do not want to die away.

Opponents call it ‘neo-Historicism’, a ‘fake’ or a ‘lie’, as the palace’s almost total destruction through its demolition in the early years of the GDR should, they say, be seen as an historical act of German post-War history. They also claim that rebuilding the palace would go against our principles of how to look after historic buildings, which are based on the fundamental policy of preservation, not reconstruction. And as in this particular case, apart from the foundations and remnants of cellar walls, nothing remains of the upper structure, they turn this guiding principle into an uncompromising diktat.

It is, however, a diktat that the nations of Eastern Europe chose not to follow after the catastrophic destruction of the last World War. The loss of historic structures was just too painful to bear. They had parts of the old town of Gdansk rebuilt, likewise the centre of Warsaw with its previously destroyed royal palace. In St. Petersburg, too, the Russian historic preservation authority reconstructed ruined buildings or filled in holes shot in their walls in the original form. In Austria and Germany, too, people were certainly not always prepared to follow the aforementioned principles. Dresden’s Zwinger Palace was not left as a shattered rump, but was restored to its former glory with the utmost care and the use of highly skilled craftsmen. The city’s Frauenkirche is the latest example of such an approach, while in Munich a block of buildings on Maximilianstrasse that had been sacrificed to the traffic was rebuilt, not as a so-called ‘critical reconstruction’, but painstakingly following the original design, as they also hope and plan to do in Berlin with the Bauakademie, likewise destroyed through demolition.

In all the cities mentioned above it was not the individual building that was seen as the valuable piece of historic heritage, but the complete street and public space – the ensemble! And this also answers the question in respect of Berlin Palace, which was the most important part of a larger whole.

It gave the centre of the city its cohesion. As a result of its demolition this was lost, making it then almost impossible to recognise how the remaining buildings were designed to relate to each other.

Now, you could naturally ask what it was that made Berlin so architec-

The diagonal visual link between opera house and Schinkel’s Neue Wache (Extract from a picture of a parade by Franz Krüger, 1829)

View from the Linden promenade to the temple-like front of von Knobelsdorff’s opera house.

(Extract from a painting by Eduard Gaertner, 1853)

turally unique and noteworthy, setting this city apart from other major cities in Europe. If we think of ‘Unter den Linden’, which used to lead as a broad, tree-lined avenue up to the palace and today without this building encounters an empty space, then there are also major axes in Munich, Paris or Rome that are similar and perhaps even grander. So do we have to repair Berlin as a work of urban development art if in an ever-merging Europe substitutes already exist?

Can Berlin not be spared the obligations of tradition in order to go its own, above all new way?

Let us first attempt to explain what it is that makes this city unique and very special. A comparison of the five most famous avenues of Europe may show similarities, but it shows differences as well. The most closely related appears to be Paris and the Champs-Elysées. There we have the spatial climax to the road in the form of the Louvre and its grand forecourt.

This, however, is a situation that did not come about in the form that we are able to experience it today until 1871, when the burnt-out Tuileries Palace was demolished. Thus now the spatial flow, coming down from the

Place de l’Etoile is caught by the Louvre’s side wings and west-facing front and has unmistakably reached its destination, the centre of the city and of the nation.

In Berlin it was different! With the help of the beautiful veduta of painters Eduard Gaertner or Franz Krüger it is possible to describe the city layout in the first half of the 19th century, especially the route from the Brandenburg Gate to the palace, with the key part being primarily the last third of this route, which in our day is sadly greatly impaired by traffic and road markings.

Pariser Platz was the vestibule, the reception room and the start of the city. From there began the avenue of linden trees, with thoroughfares for horse and carriage down either side and a broad central strip for a casual stroll. Stepping out from under the leafy canopy of this eight-hundredmetre long promenade onto Opernplatz, passers-by experienced the ‘Forum Fridericianum’ as an asymmetrical extension of space, with which they could have broken out of the linearly aligned path. However, architect Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff had given the opera house such a striking temple-like front that it was bound to draw people’s eyes and movement towards it (illustration 1).

Thus here, then still untroubled by any stream of cars, people were already drawn away from the centre of the road towards the side, without however leaving the ‘Linden’, which at that point was now a treeless avenue accompanied solely by buildings. The front of the opera house had, and still has, such a great magnetic power that it stopped people diverting into the Forum Fridericianum. At the same time, however, the temple-like look is so sublime that at a relatively short distance from it the observer again stands back. Pausing for a moment, people then notice the second temple-like hall diagonally opposite on the other side of the road – Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s ‘Neue Wache’ (New Guard House – illustration 2.) Thus the pedestrian gets drawn in a diagonal line by this next eye-catching element and crosses the road, only then – again pausing – to turn towards the third magnet, the Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince’s Palace), which following its remodelling was also given a colonnaded front by architect Heinrich Strack in 1856 (illustration 3). Once again the walker crosses the road and then notices the next diagonal visual link to the Zeughaus (Old Arsenal) with its temple-like gable above the central projection. Thus a pendulum movement was created that led the road’s spatial flow in a zigzag course towards the royal palace. However, before you entered the area of the royal residence, Schinkel’s bridge with its groups of statues created a gateway situation (illustration 4). It captured the pendulum movement, bundled it up and moulded it back into a straight path heading for the palace.

Then, however, came the remarkable – and in comparison to Paris – totally different element: in Berlin the high and also very long palace façade did not bring the movement to a halt.

The building stood at an angle to the

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The Berliner Schloss

Unter den Linden opening out onto the Lustgarten, with palace, cathedral and Altes Museum. Based on a pencil drawing by K. F. Schinkel, 1823

spatial flow, which glided off of it and turned into the ‘Lustgarten’, the city’s primary forum (illustration 4). And it was only there that it came to rest, caught between the front of the palace and the ‘Altes Museum’ (Old Museum), the second important building by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. We thus found ourselves in an area of contrasts, which as an architectural composition gained its greatest appeal from the juxtaposition of the façades of these two buildings. As different as they were, they both nevertheless had an equal aura and gravitas to keep the space in balance.

Given what was in itself a very difficult initial scenario, this was a work of genius by Schinkel. He had given his museum a colonnaded front, thus forging the entire building into a single monumental entity. This device was necessary, as he could not compete with the size of the palace on the opposite side of the gardens. His ‘giant order’ therefore extends over both storeys and thus conceals the fact that there are two floors one above the other. In order to then lessen the monumentality somewhat, he chose the Ionic order for his columns and decorated the rear wall of the front portico with a cycle of pictures that are designed to overcome barriers of grandeur and invite people to come in and take a look. In terms of its outer form he modelled this construction on Greek stoas.

With this the ‘Lustgarten’ was transformed into an agora, a people’s forum, and thus to the showcase centre of the city. Predominant until then, the palace became the border piece of this public space. It opened itself up, however, through its ‘Lustgarten’ portals, from which any monumental character had already been taken by the orangery feel given to them by Baroque architect Andreas Schlüter. Despite being smaller in size, the new museum building on the other side of the square would then have thus almost become the more dominant, as the high, twostorey colonnade looks like the front of a temple and elevates the stoa into a holy shrine of the fine arts – a temple of the muses. However, you only fully appreciate that when we go inside the

building and reach the central domed hall. There is no sign of this from outside as the dome is hidden behind a raised, cubic structure, thus making its impact all the more surprising.

Here the entire flow of movement through this aligned sequence of buildings finally comes to a stop and fades away in stately tranquillity.

Now you could easily jump to the premature conclusion that in the ensemble described here Schinkel’s museum alone and not the palace is the most important element and the culmination of the whole. But in such an isolated state as we see it today it gets misunderstood. It stands there with no interrelationships within the urban fabric. It is missing the juxtaposition with the contrasting, Baroque façade. And just how important Schinkel regarded the way in which the two buildings corresponded to each other is shown by an etching sketched by him in his volume of ‘Architektonische Entwürfe’ (Architectural Designs – illustration 5). Behind the portico front of his museum he created a stairway with an panoramic gallery so that people could view from there, raised above the level of the busy square, the whole urban space

and the juxtaposition with the royal palace.

And now we are faced in the first instance with the question of whether we want to recreate this space with its exciting contrasts. And that is without yet addressing the pros and cons of reconstructing the palace. If we want to retain the city’s most important

square, its former heart, with its architectural frame, then we could indeed also consider a new building to take the place of the royal residence.

Numerous proposals have in fact also been submitted and although none of them were satisfactory, the issue of a ‘modern’ structure keeps getting raised, often with an aggressive un-

Panoramic gallery in the Altes Museum with view of the Lustgarten and palace on the opposite side.

(K. F. Schinkel, Collection of Architectural Designs, Berlin, 1866, page 43)

The ‘Crown Prince’s Palace’, remodelled by Heinrich Stack in 1856-58, with its portico in front of the central projection.

dertone and stridently calling for a Michelangelo, a Bernini or a Schlüter of our day. But he has yet to appear.

And with our totally different methods of design what architectural style should he indeed choose? It would, for example, as has already happened elsewhere, be a fatal mistake to reproduce the monumental character of the Altes Museum with, for instance, a similar sequence of pillars breaking up the great size of the building as a ‘giant order’ matching the museum’s columns. We would be veering there, without meaning to, into the environs of fascist architecture. Plus the main allure of the square with the lovely, handed-down name of ‘Lustgarten’ lay in the antithesis of palace and museum. It was not a case of two façades mutually competing for dominance. They respected each other, did not demand any subjugation from their counterpart and maintained their independence through the contrast in their architectural demeanour.

With any new build that would be the most important thing that would need to be considered in respect of this city planning situation. But if we try to imagine how a façade on this site could look, then the answer to the question remains totally unclear.

There are certainly very many possibilities, which, however, show us that our architecture is fragmented in many different directions. That has already been shown by unconvincing design proposals featuring strict functionality or embarrassing gimmickry. However, that has nothing to do with the abilities or creativity of our contemporary architects. The end of the twentieth century clearly heralded a time of change. Architects may not like to be told so, but the ‘post modern’ movement was already a criticism of ‘modern’ architecture and, like other architectural styles, definitely bore Mannerist traits that are comparable to 16th century trends. The reconstruction of the German pavilion in Barcelona, which Mies van der Rohe had built for the international expo in 1929 and that as a result of demolition no longer existed, is a yearning look back to the early days of our era. But 80 years have

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The Berliner Schloss passed since then. We cannot remain stuck in a rut, committed to classically modern architecture. It has to change with the times and this process is already in a very eventful phase. We are currently in a crisis, which, however, is experimenting and looking creatively for new ways of doing things. Yet no matter how imaginative and interesting the diversity of design may now be, it nevertheless clearly bears the signs of a general uncertainty. And this uncertainty, these traits of crisis cannot be allowed to stamp the character of a building that is to stand on the most important site of the city of Berlin, in its centre, at its heart.

There is also something else that complicates matters greatly: the palace had a façade facing the Lustgarten that was a good 200 metres in length and almost 30 metres high.

These days we hardly ever tackle long, even rows of windows in such dimensions. If accentuated elements were added through changes in the rhythm or structure, that would destroy the distinguished, calm unison that needs to be maintained here as a counterpart to the museum. The new building also cannot be allowed to become a stand-alone sculpture, the façade not permitted to be a backdrop for some graphic linear gimmickry! However, the building should not have a monotone feel and in order to achieve that we lack an important design element that Baroque architecture possessed. Only it had the ability with architectural ornamentation to serenely transmit extreme grandeur, to convey a monumental air and despite the sense of gravity to also have a joyful countenance.

Yet still to come is the critical question of whether in this era we are still able to achieve the quality of Baroque façade architecture. The palace in Berlin was a masterpiece of architect and sculpture Andreas Schlüter. How can we therefore be so impudent as to copy such an outstanding, unique building with its great decorative sculptures? This admonition is constantly getting levelled against the reconstruction from an art and architectural history perspective. Yet it is important here to remember first of all that, as the king’s chief architect, Andreas Schlüter had many tasks and we would be foolish to imagine that on this major palace project has was also able to find much time for chiselling. He will have made masters, sometimes getting personally involved. Then, however, there were lots of helpers who created the ornamental pieces with greater or lesser degrees of skill. And the inevitable differences in quality (as can incidentally still be seen from the preserved remnants) hardly mattered, as the complicated pieces were mainly mounted at a great height on the façade’s fascia and thus out of reach of any close examination. The two portals on the Lustgarten side of the palace will present more of a problem.

But there too we should not underes-

Unter den Linden, looking east from the Staatsbibliothek (National Library)

timate our sculptures’ talents. They have already done some outstanding work. The Hercules on the Rampart Pavilion of Dresden’s Zwinger Palace is, for example, also a copy from the post-War era and in no way fails to do justice to the original! The statues on the parapet of Berlin’s Zeughaus have

been replaced by reproductions, as what really matters is the overall impression. The work of Schlüter or his team of sculptures should be available to be studied closely by viewing the remaining originals in an exhibition. About one thing, however, we have to be clear: a reconstructed pal-

ace is and always will be a copy. That cannot be changed! But the stubborn aversion to a reconstruction espoused in a few journals is, as we know, not just based on that. There are more reconstructed ‘historic’ buildings in the world than we would like to admit. Just think of the Campa-

Central Berlin 1937. Aerial photograph, taken from the west. With a huge footprint measuring around a 120 x 200m and an eaves height of 31m (74m up to the top of the dome), the palace dominated the heart of the city. The showcase Unter den Linden boulevard began at the Brandenburg Gate, based on the propylaeae of Athens, which was the gateway to the palace. The palace in turn formed the final point of this important avenue and was the gravitational centre of old Berlin.

nile on St. Mark’s Square in Venice. In Berlin, however, we are burdened by the Prussian factor, our own past with its great catastrophes. And it is above all from this distaste for the chequered course of our history that the rejection of the Hollenzollern’s palace also stems. However, quite apart from the fact that the generally disseminated picture of matters Prussian is largely distorted, we must not in this case transfer the politics of that era onto the building. When Schlüter designed the palace and when construction began in 1699, there was no Prussian state yet in existence. The client was still the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg and he will have scarcely had any notion of what is specifically Prussian any more than Schlüter, who orientated himself on Rome and Paris. His role model was Bernini! The Louvre project must have fascinated him, so too the clear lines of Versailles, from which Schlüter drew his inspiration for the design of the portal on the south façade of his palace.

Contrary to what some claim, there was nothing Wilhelmine at all to be found on the outside of the palace.

The ‘Weiße Saal’ (White Hall) inside the palace, remodelled by Ernst von Ihne, did belong to the Wilhelmine Period. However, Ihne was a student of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the ‘Wilhelmine’ style, like many other building styles in cosmopolitan cities, followed the French architecture of the time and was certainly not Prussian. In this era too German architecture was influenced by Europe and showed that, as in the past, it was interlinked with the major artistic cities’ international exchange of design forms. And the role Berlin played in this was not just one of recipient, of taker.

The city was also a source of ideas that shaped European architecture!

When we go, for instance, into the inner courtyard of the Louvre we recognise reflected in the floors erected under the rule of Napoleon I

by Charles Percier and Pierre Francois Leonard Fontaine the portal of Berlin Palace’s south façade, which – as already mentioned – was, however, already a product itself of influences from Italy and France. Thus, despite all the wars, there was a give and take in intellectual life and thus also in art.

The loss of the palace, however, means that this valuable exchange of thoughts and ideas is no longer clearly visible in Berlin. Old plans, wooden models and photographs are not adequate to enable us to experience it again.

And yet the experience is what matters! Only with the urban fabric and palace façades restored will it be possible to experience and truly grasp the three-way relationship between Rome, Paris and Berlin and it is precisely because of the dark passages in our German history that this tradition is so important, as it places us visibly within the context of the European community.

War Damage in 1945 – Demolition in 1950 On February 3rd, 1945, during one of the heaviest Allied air raids, incendiary and demolition bombs destroyed the Berliner Schloss [Ber-

lin Palace]. It burned for almost four days. No efforts were made to extinguish the fire. After almost two years of daily air raids, the Ber-

liners had resigned. There was no use of trying to put out a fire, when another air raid would undo all the attempts the following day.

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et it turned out that the huge building was less damaged than the Charlottenburger Schloss [Charlottenburg Palace] in the western part of Berlin.

Burned out, the Schloss remained solid and firm in its foundations.

Its demolition five years later was clearly an arbitrary act: For ideological reasons, the political leadership of the German Democratic Republic wanted to root out Prussian history. This was the reason, why the Berliner Stadtschloss [Berlin City Palace], the Potsdamer Stadtschloss [Potsdam City Palace] as well as the Potsdamer Garnisonskirche [Potsdam Garrison Church] were demolished. There is no doubt that these buildings could have been reconstructed. The Charlottenburger Schloss [Charlottenburg Palace], the Würzburger Residenzschloss [Wuerzburg Residence], and many other architectural gems, destroyed during the World War II and subsequently rebuilt, may serve as proof.

When, in July of 1950, the GDR’s Council of Ministers decided on the demolition of the Schloss, opposition mounted.

Protests were voiced across the political spectrum. Here, are some statements by advocates and opponents of the Schloss’s demolition. Even today they ring with emotion.

»The center of our Capital, the Lustgarten [Pleasure Garden], and the area of the current Schlossruine [ruins of the Palace] have to become a great parade square, where we will express the people’s will to fight and rebuild our State«.

(Walter Ulbricht, Secretary-General of the SED [Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – Socialist Unity Party of Germany, the East German Communist Party] in 1950.) »Therefore, my conscience is clear. Right now, everyone is making a lot of noise. Once the building is gone, there will not be anyone talking about it anymore«.

(OttoGrotewohl, Head of State of the GDR, in 1950.)

Berlin’s destroyed city center with Schloss and Berliner Dom [Berlin Cathedral] in 1945

»We had a choice: Palace or Cathedral. Had we pulled down the Cathedral, we would have been accused of ‘attacking the church’. We would have provided the West with ammunition for years to come. Therefore, we decided to tear down the Schloss.

We would be able to deal with the art historians all right«.

(Wilhelm Girnus, a then Under-State Secretary for Technical and Secondary Education to-be, in 1951.)

Demolition of a part of the façade on the south side of the Schloss; the explosion caught two street sweepers by surprise

»As long as someone does not forcibly shut my mouth, I will not stop protesting against this decision, and indeed, not as a supporter of the West, but rather as a son of the East who is bound in my inmost being to Berlin and its culture and who is at pains in questions of culture to give preference to the East as to those things which it has a right to through its great legacy of art, like the Berliner Schloss.« (Prof. Dr. Richard Hamann, Dean of the Art History Faculty of the East Berlin Humboldt University, 1950) »In consideration of its European artistic importance, and its historical, urban, and social historical importance, and further in view of the fact that the Schloss is a testimony to Berlin architecture over 5 centuries, The German Academy of Science opposes the planned final destruction of the Schloss with the gravest misgivings. The Academy does this in fulfillment of its responsibility and its duty to involve itself in the preservation of the culture heritage of the German people in general and the protection of monuments in particular.

Among the objects of this sort to be looked after, the Schloss stands in the foremost rank.« (Prof. Dr. Johannes Stroux, President of the Academy of Science, East Berlin, 1950) »The resulting formlessly spreading open space would have on its eastern edge (not even at its center) the cathedral as its only accent – that pseudotechtonic construction of misunderstood overblown pomp which has always disturbed the viewer and now, in its isolation, will be even more obtrusive. Do we really want this? Next to the towering cathedral dome, no building in the same avenue – only separated from it by the width of one street – can be erected that can somehow dominate the area. It will always be repressed by the cathedral.« (Ernst Gall 1950) »The people in power in East Berlin perceive the fame of the Schloss as a discordant note from a long passed cult of nobility. This has irritated their sensitive eardrums and must now be hushed. They prefer to hear their own noises on the demonstration square which they have built on the site of the demolished Schloss. Yet this bleak square will also one day become a monument, a monument to lack of respect, to narrow mindedness, and to spiritual poverty.« (Prof. Ragnar Josephson, Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm, 1950)

Berliner Schloss, September 1950. Portal V with the pilaster Hermes “Spring” and “Summer”. View into the most important hall of the Schloss, the Knight’s Hall.

One can clearly see how well preserved the plasterwork of the burned out room still is after 5 1⁄2 years of being exposed to the weather without protection.

The Knight’s Hall could have been reconstructed to a great extent in accordance with the original.

Yet all this was destroyed in the demolition.

September 9, 1950. The southwest corner of the Schloss has been torn down

This is what remained after the removal of the Schloss: The desolate demonstration plaza 1951

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The new Berliner Schloss – Humboldtforum

The Humboldt Forum: Reconstruction and development of Berlin Palace

by Prof. arch. Franco Stella

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he reconstruction of Berlin Palace is based on a resolution of the German parliament, the Bundestag, passed in 2004. This resolution stipulates that the Humboldt Forum is to be created within the footprint of the former palace, with its three Baroque outer façades and the inner Baroque façades of the eastern courtyard, i.e. the Schlüter Courtyard (Schlüterhof).

It further stipulates that a dome should again crown the western side, although nothing is said about its design.

This order of parliament produces two requirements: the reconstruction of the historic façades as authentically as possible, for which in this case the Stuhlemmer firm of architects in Berlin is responsible, and the planning of the modern parts of the building, which is my task.

In the competition design that I submitted – and, of course, in the

final version – the reconstructed and newly constructed parts come together to form one holistic structure, with no attempt at any compromise of style or design between the respective parts. That means that the architecture of the new combines with the architecture of the old on the basis of the same rational rules and principles. There will be no stylistic assimilation, much less any syncretism, which in itself would already be an expression of a taste for a specific era or of a personal architectural style.

The old and the new will instead have their own specific form.

The primary principle is respect for the identity of each style. The brief to reconstruct the historic façades rules out any modernisation of the Baroque style – for instance, following the principles of so-called ‘critical reconstruction’. Conversely, however, the new parts to be built will not be a

mere paraphrase of the old: there is neither any intention here to create a simplified version of the old – for instance, a cut-down modern neo-Baroque – nor any question of ‘antiquifying’ the modern style of design.

Indeed, it is precisely through this relationship with the old that the new

attains the character of being timelessly modern. This notion of architectural beauty is based on the visualisation of history and widely understandable forms. The new structure is designed to complement the old palace so that together both parts can fulfil the physical and intellectual task intended for them.

What does this physical and intellectual task entail? As mentioned above, the size of the future Humboldt Forum will largely match the interior dimensions of Berlin Palace, which Andreas Schlüter, Johann Friedrich von Eosander and Martin Böhme developed at the start of 18th century into the complex that then served the Prussian kings and German Kaisers as their official residence through to the end of the First World War. The 18th century architects modelled their work on scores of monuments from Roman antiquity,

on Roman Renaissance and Roman Baroque, excerpts of which they synthesised into a new style of design.

Following the First World War, the palace served as a museum. Between 1943 and 1945 it suffered extensive damage. In 1950, it fell victim to the political ideology of the GDR and was demolished. Two decades later the so-called ‘Palace of the Republic’ rose up in its place.

In the future, under the name the ‘Humboldt Forum’, the palace will be a ‘global centre’ of art and culture, especially for the presentation of non-European cultures, that will combine with the neighbouring Museum Island to form a “single conceptual unit of cultural heritage, knowledge, encounter and experience”.

It is important to point out that when the members of the German parliament passed the resolution to rebuild the Baroque façades they

The New Humboldt Forum, Lustgarten, Cathedral and Museum's Island: The new and ancient Centre of Berlin

The new Berliner Schloss – Humboldtforum

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The Palace from the Boulevard Unter den Linden

were unquestionably convinced of the extraordinary quality of Schlüter’s and Eosander’s architecture. However, the resolution did not express any fundamental aesthetic preference. It was not a matter of valuing Baroque architecture as fundamentally better than its modern counterpart. Rather parliament perceived a high cultural and societal value in the reconstruction of the façades, because they do indeed have an extraordinary cultural and societal value. For it is only with its historic façades that the Humboldt Forum can arouse an awareness of history and provide a sense of identity.

Essentially, I think that adding modern structures to the old can succeed if you pick up on some elementary elements and thus carry these over into a modern form of design that perceives them as their ‘translation’ into the language of modern architecture. New lines are thus to an extent being added in modern form to an old text, while its core message remains the same. These additional lines can even be a kind of commentary that explains and interprets the old. In concrete terms this means that the new picks up on a building’s type or underlying idea. In this case it means that the former significance of the palace also gets absorbed into the new parts that are to be added. For the palace was, indeed, not just an architectural symbol of power, it also housed a very significant library and

a large art collection. It is from these that the Berlin State Library and the Berlin Museums later evolved. Furthermore the Schlüter Courtyard was designed as a forum, in which in its day court life was played out as if in a

theatre. The intention now is that the parts to be built in a modern style will recall all of these elements – forum, library, art collection and theatre.

Clearly this is not comparable with recalling an actual person, an indi-

The Agora

vidual entity. Rather it is about creating an analogy of place, function and outer appearance. The Humboldt Forum, built on the site of the demolished palace, is intended to pick up on key attributes of the original build-

ing and adapt to them in a modern way (as Schlüter, Eosander and Böhme also adapted their work to Roman architecture in the 18th century): with his modern architecture the architect thus enters a tradition that he now interprets in a new way – namely, in one that does not destroy the tradition, yet fits in well in the new age and suits modern building projects. For this reason, the palace’s Baroque façades do need to be reconstructed in their original form: this is not about rebuilding a palace, but about remembering history. The new Humboldt Forum should be a place of cultural commemoration and cultural self-affirmation. On top of this comes the additional task of the palace needing to fit perfectly into the context of the surrounding buildings.

The new structure is designed to fulfil these requirements to such a degree that it will give the impression that Berlin Palace had always been there. To avoid any misunderstandings let me stress that this will not be a case of manipulating history, of acting as if the palace had not been demolished, as if there had been no World War, no GDR and no Palace of the Republic. Rather it is about the concept and design per se being so in keeping that the building feels totally natural in its overall appearance and on this site. The building must be utterly credible.

Let me explain these ideas more

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precisely. Firstly, the outer walls are going to consist of solid masonry over one metre thick. The façades are thus not mock structures made up of thousands of individual pieces and simply hung on or applied to the body of the building. Instead they spread around it like a skin with no joints. What’s more, via the windows’ stone frames and reveals and the fully integrated cornices the façade surfaces are joined firmly to the core masonry. From a technical perspective alone it would therefore be totally impossible for the palace to be initially built without its Baroque outer skin, as occasionally claimed in the press.

Secondly, another element of any ‘credible’ reconstruction ought to be that via the north, west, south and Schlüter Courtyard façades called for by parliament the insides of all the parts that directly carry on the outer appearance should be incorporated into the reconstruction as well. That means in the first place the insides of portals II (the former city side), III (west side) and IV (Pleasure Gardens side), which all led into the former Eosander Courtyard (Eosanderhof). Eosander had designed them as counterparts to the external portals and thus linked them with these via colonnades. The competition design at least then also makes provision for the recreation of the remaining façades of the Eosander Courtyard. And last but not least, the intention is for the dome that Friedrich August Stüler erected over portal risalit III in the middle of the 19th century to rise up again. Erecting this in some modern form, as allowed as an alternative by the parliament resolution, is not the plan. Finally, it is also envisaged that the staircases that used to exist behind the three risalits of the Schlüter Courtyard and in which the façade architecture carried on through to the inside will also be reconstructed within the medium term.

On the other hand, some parts will be completely redesigned.

These include the west side of the Schlüter Courtyard, which will replace two buildings from the 16th and early 17th century. Together with the eastern end of the adjacent Eosander Courtyard, the back of this wing forms an extended passage that is being called the Palace Forum (Schlossforum). Within this Palace Forum the previously mentioned insides of portals II and IV, which had always served as the courtyard’s entrance and exit, form the two ends. As such they form eyecatching elements inside the passage that give the elongated space a special dynamism.

The eastern façade facing the

The new Berliner Schloss – Humboldtforum

The Schlüter Court Yard

Spree is also being totally redesigned. Called the Belvedere, it will replace a very inhomogeneous group of buildings from the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Being created on the site of the former Eosander Courtyard there is also the so-called Agora, which, in addition to the four wings that border it, also includes two inserted cubes.

In terms of placing Berlin Palace in context with its surroundings, the Palace Forum forms the entrance courtyard to the Humboldt Forum. This is designed to have the effect that, unlike the old palace, the new building turns out not to be a closed block that separates the south from Museum Island to the north. Rather the palace is intended – as an integral part of Museum Island – to now become a link between it and the wider city.

To this end the Palace Forum creates a passage that will be open 24/7 from Palace Square (Schlossplatz) in the south to the Pleasure Gardens (Lustgarten) in the north and from there to the broad Unter den Linden avenue, leading off to the west. Moreover the passage gives the palace the public nature that it needs in order to satisfy its role as a forum.

As far as its design is concerned, it is adorned down both sides with rows of columns lined one above the other, which are reminiscent of the colonnaded halls of Greek and Roman squares and act as a reference to the place’s public character. In proportion and style they are also reminiscent of numerous famous squares in European cities, such as the Piazza degli Uffizi in Florence. As is the case there, the architecture follows the classic rules of solid-wall and columnbased construction.

The Agora is a spacious entrance and reception hall, a kind of covered piazza, which stretches out between the Baroque courtyard walls and the inserted cubes, as well as between the cubes themselves.

While in the case of the Baroque façades the wall is the primary element into which the windows are in effect placed, the modern façades consist of a form of sectional architecture, which in line with the so-called trilithon system is created from a series of columns carrying an entablature.

It is thus like a hypostyle, i.e. a form of architecture that in contrast to the classic peristyle has the colonnade not on the outside but on the inside. Its open, gridpatterned roof also resembles a glass sky. Cutting through the Agora along its central axis is a staircase that leads below ground to the lower floor. Here there will be rooms that are designed to be

The new Berliner Schloss – Humboldtforum

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Stella's design of the Spreefacade

utilised by a wider public: theatre facilities, an auditorium, a restaurant and a café.

On the east side of the Agora two flights of stairs, which are clearly visible through the façade, run away from each other up to the floors above. On the first floor to the rooms being used for academic cultural

purposes (library and Humboldt University facilities) and on the second into the museum exhibition area with exhibits of non-European art.

The Belvedere forms a façade to the palace that through its very modernity seeks to make a connection with the modern post-War architecture around Alexanderplatz. At the same

time it also forms a public space stretching out to the water. In order to make it clear that this is a public place and not a residential building the competition design provides for open balconies, behind which expansive stairways lead up to the viewing platform on the roof. Over and above its great scenographic character, the

Reconstruction of important interior rooms of the historic palace still possible at a later date

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he palace’s suites and stairways of great historic value are being planned in such a way that it will be possible for later generations to reconstruct the most important elements of the palace’s interior.

At present this is not possible for both financial and political reasons.

Stella’s design, however, achieves the optimum scenario for a consen-

sus right across society.

Nor is this approach uncommon.

In Augsburg too it was 30 years after the modern reconstruction of the famous Renaissance town hall that its interior ‘Goldener Saal’ (Golden Hall) was recreated.

The same can happen at Berlin Palace – if that’s one day what society wants.

combination of looking and climbing maps the façade of the Old Museum (Altes Museum), which as we know Karl Friedrich Schinkel had designed as a response to Schlüter’s palace façades.

As the example of the Belvedere shows, the idea is that the modern parts of the future Humboldt Forum

should do more than just further develop the palace of Schlüter and Eosander. The intention is to further develop, and to a certain extent complete, the Museum Island as a whole.

The Humboldt Forum is thus designed to help close the gaping, open wound that currently still scars the heart of city.

Apocalyptic scars of demolition to be visible in Humboldt Forum

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unning north to south below the dome-topped Eosander Portal there used to be a 60-metre passageway with a solid tunnel vault.

When the portal was blown up, hundreds of tons of dynamite tore up this passageway and lifted the portal 30 centimetres into the air, before it broke up as it came crashing down.

All that is left of the passageway are the craters made by the dynamite and the tattered sidewalls, as seen here.

It is intended to make this evidence of the apocalypse of the palace’s demolition visible within the new construction. As people in future walk through the Eosander Portal they will see the transverse passageway illuminated beneath their feet through glass panels in the ground.

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The new Berliner Schloss-Humboldtforum

Berlin 2019: the Berlin Palace - Humboldt Forum from the cathedral’s small southeast dome. The transition of the Schlüter façade into Stella’s modern eastern side works well, while discrete, historically influenced colouring in keeping with the location embeds the palace into its historic surroundings.

A beautiful building The exterior of the palace is nearing its ultimate form. Architect Franco Stella has given the transition on the Lustgarten side from the Schlüter façade into his modern east façade a far more harmonious look. Facing onto Schlossplatz it has also been possible with the help a donor in late 2011 to add Schlüter’s round corner tower, so that here too the historic façade is now finished off in its classic form.

The modern façades on the eastern side and in the Schlüter Courtyard are being put together from prefabricated sections, which have joints between them. These could potentially be worked up into shadow gaps, which would give the façades a series of fine divisions. We have illustrated this here with simple lines.

Based on a test painting of the sample section, the historic façades’ colour scheme has been approved by the Expert Reconstruction Committee and only marginal modifications are now to be expected in this regard. All in all: it is going to be a beautiful building!

The new Berliner Schloss-Humboldtforum

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Exemplary façade In spring 2012, the sample façade, a first component of the new Berlin Palace, was completed in full-scale authentic format. Its surface area corresponds to just one half of one per cent of the palace’s three Baroque outer façades, which are now due to be reconstructed. The palace was that huge!

The upper half of the Schlüter window bay, consisting of parade floor window, mezzanine, cornice and balustrade has been fully reconstructed, including all decorative elements, such as the eagle, the initialled cartouche, the ram’s heads and the laurel garlands. For structural and for cost reasons it was decided not to reconstruct the bottom half, which for test sampling was also not necessary.

The façade is in the truest sense of the world exem-

plary. The whole wall structure matches that of the later palace. In front of the concrete skin on the inside is the insulation layer. This is then followed by a brick wall, c. 80cm thick, into which the sandstone façade elements have been embedded. Also inside the brick wall is a thick, zinc-plated pipe, the palace roof’s internal drain.

The sandstone elements were fixed in place in accordance with the old tradition. The only change being that casting lead was no longer used, replaced instead by corresponding

anchors made of non-rusting stainless steel.

Sandstone of several different provenances was built into the sample section, in order to also test which sorts were truly the optimum choice, not only in relation to appearance, but also in terms of resistance to weathering. The palace’s future colouring is also being tested on this section. The next time you visit the Humboldt Box you should definitely take a look at the façade. It is situated directly opposite the cathedral next to the River Spree.

Thorough and careful preparations for selecting the palace façade stones:

A journey to the quarries of Saxony and Silesia There is scarcely any aspect that is of greater importance to the reconstruction of the palace façades than the selection of the right sandstone for the different façade elements. Depending on how the stone is going to be worked and what it will have to withstand, three quality grades are required: a soft stone for the finely sculpted pieces, a harder stone for the simpler sculptures and a tough stone for the cornices and all parts of the façades directly exposed to the elements, as this withstands such environmental influences the best. The burden placed on the stones over the decades is enormous. They store lots of moisture and are subjected to great fluctuations in temperature, plus direct sunlight, frost, snow and rain. The dew point in the stone therefore plays a major role.

In the 18th century, Andreas Schlüter travelled personally to Saxony into the Elbe Sandstone Mountains near Pirna to the south of Dresden. In logistical terms these were the closest to Berlin Palace. He is said to have even had his own quarry there. In those days transportation presented the biggest problem. After all, unlike today there was no well-developed road or rail network for bringing the incredibly heavy blocks of stone to Berlin to be worked on.

Even transporting the stone from the quarry to the loading point on

A quarry in Silesia…

the side of the Elbe presented a huge problem that could only be overcome with a massive effort from man and beast. The only option for onward transportation to Berlin was the Elbe, the Havel and

finally the Spree. The stones were shipped down river along the Elbe and then towed up river against the current along the Havel and the Spree, i.e. the barges were pulled by teams of horses on the

riverbank all the way to the palace building site. This extremely tough work was immensely time-consuming and expensive. While today the material costs compared to the wages of the stonemasons

and sculptors are at a ratio of 1: 10, the stone alone was therefore often more expensive than the piece-rate wages paid for it to be worked on and sculpted into shape. The Elbe Sandstone Moun-

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The new Berliner Schloss-Humboldtforum

A block being sliced up using a frame saw.

tains were thus the only range from which the building materials could be extracted at a cost that was even halfway predictable. The soft sculptor’s stone was accordingly Cotta stone, the mediumhard grade Reinhardsdorf stone and the hard grade Posta stone, named in each case after the location of the seam within the mountain range. As the quarries were increasingly exhausted they migrated away from their original location – and thus the quality of the stone also often changed.

But they took what they could get, without thinking about dura-

bility, i.e. without worrying about how long the pieces of work would last, there being, after all, no other option. And thus after not even a hundred years since its expansion

by Schlüter and Eosander the palace fell into disrepair, because much of the stone failed to withstand the constant changes between rain, frost, heat and arid air.

Ultimately at the start of the 19th century under Friedrich Wilhelm III the palace had to be refurbished over many areas of it façades. All of the parapet statues were taken down due to their weathered state. Some have been

Manfred Rettig, Berthold Just and Dr. Angela Ehling at a stonemason’s yard.

Görlitz, the pearl of Lusatia, border town between Saxony and Silesia.

Salvaging the blocks of stone using heavy equipment.

preserved to this day in the depositories and provide wonderful testimony to the high level of the 18th century sculptors’ creative skills – and to the dramatic decay of the stone caused by environmental influence, as even then due to the thousands of chimneys in built-up areas they already had acid rain, it was just that nobody was aware of it.

In the 19th century, as a result of Berlin’s canal link to the Oder, builders in Berlin increasingly used Silesian sandstone, which was more durable. Today we are able to order the required sandstone from all sorts of different quarries, matching in exemplary fashion to the respective façade part and the demands placed upon it. Due to its better durability the sandstone for the restoration of Cologne Cathedral, for instance, no longer comes from the Siebengebirge Mountains just a few kilometres to the south, but in part even from quarries in the section of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains located inside the Czech Republic, because expert crystallographic reports prove that the stone from there is likely to last longer. What then could have made more sense than, accompanied by academic experts, to visit a number of important quarries in order establish the bases for procuring thousands of tons of sandstone for the reconstruction of the palace façade?

In May, a party of key personnel therefore travelled to Saxony and Silesia to view local projects and to hold discussions with the local experts. The party included Manfred Rettig, the Berlin Palace Humboldt Forum Foundation’s executive board spokesman, Berthold Just, Director of the Palace Construction Workshop in Spandau, geologist Dr. Angela Eh-

ling from the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources and Wilhelm von Boddien, whose Friends of Berlin Palace association is responsible via its fund-raising efforts for the financing of the palace façades.

The result was encouraging: there are sufficient deposits of high quality stone to satisfy both the sculptors’ current demands and the needs of sustainability in order, taking advantage of market competition, to buy the required quantities of the three main grades at reasonable prices. This had to be clarified before building activ-

… and one in Saxony.

ity started and tender documents began to be developed.

In August the results were discussed at the foundation in a first meeting of the Expert Reconstruction Committee established for this purpose – the process has begun and will carry on further.

However, the sculptors to be commissioned will also have a say on ‘their’ stone and their judgement incorporated case by case.

This, after all, is also part of the centuries old tradition of their trade. It is ultimately they who create from a raw block a sublime work of art!

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Reconstruction and modern age

Construction and reconstruction of historic continuity A copy is no fraud, a facsimile no forgery, a replica no crime and a reconstruction no lie

by Winfried Nerdinger

Dresden’s Frauenkirche before the War, in ruins in 1945 and after being rebuilt from 1994 to 2005

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own the centuries the training of artists and architects has been based on copying models and templates, while art and architecture developed via reproduction, adaptation, citation and repetition. These principles were also part of the foundations, for example, of all Roman art.

It nevertheless has its own identity and creativity and buzzwords from the ‘arsenal of modern art history’ such as ‘copyist’s art’ or ‘eclecticism’ ‘in no way do justice’ to the ‘core nature’ of this period. Palladio’s Villa Rotunda spawned hundreds of copies, adaptations and reworkings, which over many centuries carried his ideas on into numerous countries and inspired new trends. But they did not deceive anyone or rewrite history.

There is only any sense in passing moral judgement on ‘reproduction’ when it intentionally sets out to deceive in order to gain an advantage or when a truth is ascribed to the original that ought to be afforded only to it and therefore any form of iterative reproduction gets effectively devalued as an immoral process (albeit that ‘original’ here generally only means a building’s state at a fixed point in time, which itself has frequently been repaired, modified or restored over the course of history).

Architects who reconstruct a lost or ruined building are not deceiving anybody, nor forging anything. The reconstruction is always a new build-

ing, which, despite historic styles, is and thousands of buildings lay in struction’. This was both a political always recognisable as such to people ruins in Belgium, northern France aim and the wish of the people and it of the present day. It also always re- and East Prussia there were country- went ahead without any great debate mains identifiable as a reproduction wide campaigns calling for ‘Recon- about whether this would ‘falsify’ histo future generations via aptory or create buildings that propriate sources and docuwere ‘lies’. Some changes were mentation. Anyone looking at made based on functional reChristopher Wren’s famous quirements, supposedly naRoyal Hospital in the Chelsea tional forms were occasionally district of London learns only given greater emphasis and from a small panel at the ensome people promoted modeltrance that part of the building ling of the buildings ‘in keeping was destroyed in the First with the times’. Overall, howWorld War and reconstructed ever, what was built were hisin the 1920s and that another toric reproductions, some of part was hit by a bomb in the which are now of national imSecond World War and subseportance as evidence of the quently rebuilt in its old form. past and have contributed to At the entrance to Polish shaping the ‘cultural memory’ churches there is often a phoof subsequent generations. If tograph of the ruined building you walk today through the during the War and a notice centre of Arras, Diksmuide or giving the date of its reconYpres, you will find yourself in a struction. There is no lying, no town with an historic dimenfalsification or deceit going on sion, even though almost evhere, but rather through the erything you see before you reproduction of structural originates from the third deforms a memory is being precade of the last century. served and passed on to subseIt was not until after the Secquent generations. Anyone ond World War that - led by arwho does not see the notices or chitects and preservationists who believes that the old towns there were any public moral of Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw debates about reconstruction. and Poznan are ‘historic’ is not In light of the destruction and being deceived, rather they are wartime crimes these gained a poorly informed. particular ethical dimension The baroque St. Michael's-Church from 1750 in After the First World War, as and persuasiveness. Modern Hamburg, burnt down in completely 1906.

Reconstructed up to 1912 . hundreds of towns and villages architects, whose self-percep-

tion and understanding of history had been shaped by the battle against the ‘false’ architecture of the 19th century, against the supposedly uncreative, eclectic use of historic forms, declared any reconstruction a lie and a betrayal of the present. In a 1947 manifest it thus categorically said: “We must not allow our destroyed heritage to be reconstructed in historical style. It must be created in a new form for new tasks.” They wanted to clear away the psychological wreckage along with the physical ruins and then build up a new, better world. The use of historic design and the expression of modernity were reduced to the moral opposites of lie and honesty, a polarisation that often remained dominant even after history returned via the architecture of the post-modern movement.

The fact that notions of honest, contemporary, creative construction grew up out of the rejection of the supposedly dishonest, outmoded and uncreative Historicism of the 19th century and that today these notions get in the way of any sophisticated evaluation of reproduction or reconstruction does not generally get reflected, even though the achievements of Historicism have long since been placed on a par with the works of the Avant-garde and form an essential part of our cultural memory.

With contemporary architecture claiming more and more to be based

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on artistic autonomy and creative individuality, an assessment made by Rudolf Schwarz way back in 1929 therefore becomes increasingly significant: it is conceivable, after all, he said, “that somebody might undertake architectural work using old forms of design. That, however, would have nothing to do with copying and he could even be a prophet.

Conversely, most architects today are copyists. It’s just that they are copying non-understood new forms or spluttering out trendy jokes.”

The moralising attitude of many people involved today in the preservation of architectural heritage also goes back to developments in the 19th century. Faced in 1849 with the growing loss of historic buildings as a result of industrialisation and urbanisation and with attempts at a form of compensation through ‘stylistically pure’ restoration and ‘creative’ reconstruction, John Ruskin invoked the importance of historic structures with moral pleading and phraseology: “Do not let us talk then of restoration. The thing is a lie from beginning to end. You may make a model of a building as you may of a corpse, and the model may have the shell of the old walls within it as your cast might have the skeleton, with what advantage I neither see nor care: but the building is destroyed, and that more totally and mercilessly than if it had sunk into a heap of dust, or melted into a mass of clay.”

And if buildings really have to be demolished, he said, then “do it honestly and do not set up a lie in their place.” The moral discrediting and inquisitorial damnation – “falsifiers of old buildings belong on the slave boat” - of any form of reconstruction pursued by Ruskin and continued by Camillo Boito and Max Dvorák also led to the great ‘creative’ restoration and preservation achievements of Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, George Gilbert-Scott and Ferdinand von Quast, which not only rescued countless historic structures but also shaped many generations’ concepts of history, not being adequately recognised to this day and being valued less highly than ‘scientific’ preservation. The fact that the modern (Western) heritage preservation movement, which was institutionalised to preserve historic buildings and monuments, sees itself as having an obligation solely towards the historic structures is wholly natural, as this is its task and purpose.

Its hard and fast rejection of reconstructions, which as new builds do not fall in any way into the movement’s domain, is, by contrast, merely a case of moralising against a different view.

Reconstruction, however, in many cases has nothing to do with ‘heritage preservation’, but is rather a memory culture process specific to a given epoch or culture accompanied by religious or memorial aspects and interests. If the primary aim is to preserve a memory of architecture, the

Reconstruction and modern age

The only access to the viewing platform atop the historic Campanile in Venice used to be via a narrow staircase.

In 1906 the authorities therefore aimed to install a lift. However, numerous metal tie rods were in the way.

They were removed. The tower became unstable and collapsed. All that was left was a pile of rubble.

What is marveled at today is an authentic copy!

building per se does not necessarily have to be ‘original’.

In 1963, when the retention or demolition of Penn Station in New York, designed by Beaux-Arts architects McKim, Mead and White, was the subject of heated debate, Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, who since 1937 had moulded several generations of young architects at Harvard, declared: “Why, for instance, do we dissipate our strength by fighting battles for the resurrection or preservation of structures which are monuments to a particularly insignificant period in American architectural history, a period which, still unsure of its own mission, threw the Roman toga around its limbs to appease its nagging doubts. Pennsylvania Station in New York is such a case of pseudotradition.” Despite protests, one of the most important buildings of Historicism, in which the architecture of the Roman Baths of Caracalla had been reflected in a magnificent copy and transferred to a railway station complex, was – like Euston Station in

London two years earlier – torn down.

This occurred not least because its detractors were able to defame the design’s return to history and the use of historic forms as uncreative and dishonest.

This example shows not only how tightly bound to their own era the judgements of even major personalities are, but also relates to the general problem of any view back into history being frequently concentrated only on ‘progress’ and geared to the development of things new. Given this perspective all efforts at preservation or with a focus on the past get literally lost from view. The entire history of architecture, as of the visual arts, is, however, a meshwork of innovation and preservation, of upheaval and survival, of avant-garde and revival.

The history of architecture includes not only new dawns, but also continuity, periods of conscious resistance to innovation, eras of preservation and retrospective tendencies. In addition it is also a history of repairs, restorations and reconstructions,

since as a result of wars, natural disasters or simply weathering and use buildings have constantly been damaged, destroyed, repaired and restored. The notion that everything that was ever built anywhere was ‘new’ is absurd and it was only those with a view focussed on renewal that used to have little interest in preservation work. Most histories of architecture merely follow how Gothic forms spread and when and how they were first used in which building in other countries.

They show when the Renaissance came over the Alps from Italy and how this manifested itself in Germany and they analyse from where it was that Baroque design of space and façades emanated. The fact that Gothic forms continued to survive into the 18th century, that there were repeated tendencies towards using archaic styles, that destroyed vaults, towers and sections of façade were reconstructed based on what still remained and that ‘repairs’ were routine seems for determining paths to the present

to be largely unimportant or esoteric.

Comprehensive research studies into the various forms of Gothic survival architecture and into the history of restoration and preservation have, however, long since proved that as well as a history of change there was also one of continuity, of retention and indeed also of reconstruction. In his unpublished, and far too overlooked, three-volume Leipzig dissertation on the prehistory of the preservation of historic buildings Wolfgang Götz propagated as far back as 1956 a simply overwhelming wealth of material on a history of continuity in architecture. His study of building inscriptions and of bills, chronicles and lists of materials in the archives opened up a totally new view of building activities, which were geared not just to completing buildings but also to their continual restoration. While the way in which Historicism dealt with history used to be discounted as nothing more than uncreative, its gradual reassessment led from the 1960s to a plethora of studies that brought together and analysed the preservative and retrospective tendencies practically everywhere in architecture and visual art.

Michael Hesse, Hermann Hipp, Peter Kurmann, Heinrich Magirius and many others repeatedly provided new evidence that architectural history can be seen not just one-dimensionally as an advance towards the present day, but must at the same time be woven together from warp and weft, from a synopsis of breaks and continuities. This is naturally not a German phenomenon. In 1986, in a comprehensive study Jukka Jokilehto provided a ‘History of Architectural Conservation’ on a comparative basis for England, France, Germany and Italy. In all of the works it is apparent that any history of restoration “cannot be separated from the history of reincorporating past forms”.

From a perspective that embraces not just change but continuity as well, buildings that seem stylistically holistic to us today become recognisable as a testimony to many eras. This relates not just to the continued construction of Gothic religious buildings up to the early Classicist period or the ‘completions’ in the 19th century, but also to ‘historicising’ heightening of towers, replacement of buttresses and façade elements, insertions and even very generally to restorations, which pervade the timeline down the centuries. In the case of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, for example, it has been possible to determine that it was repeatedly rebuilt after destruction in its old form and that in each instance this also involved the use of new constructional elements.

The gallery reconstructed following a fire in 1481 at the foot of the great roof of Reims Cathedral copied “13th century forms extremely skilfully”, the south wall of the southern transept of the St. Servatius collegiate church in Quedlinburg was restored

Reconstruction and modern age

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The Abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy after its reconstruction (above). The war-ravaged abbey in 1944 (below)

in its old form in the middle of the Renaissance in 1571, following the Huguenot demolitions several buildings were “reconstructed in a fashion that imitated the Romanesque style with scrupulous precision” in the early 17th century and the nave walls of the Romanesque imperial cathedral in Speyer are reconstructions from the period 1772 to 1778.

It is thus definitely not the case that “the great architectural eras of the past never copied the styles of their ancestors”, asWalter Gropius claimed, telling his students: “You will search in vain for copies of the past that are supposed, for example, to preserve an outer ‘cosmetic’ conformity.” On the contrary, there have repeatedly been debates throughout history on whether a destroyed building should be reconstructed in its old form or built again based on the latest state of architectural development.

When a fire destroyed the choir of Canterbury Cathedral in 1174, the monksandexpertsdiscussedwhether to reconstruct it or build it anew in a Gothic design. Here the ‘Modernists’ won the day. After the Doge’s Palace in Venice was badly damaged by fire in 1577, the debate went back and forth on whether to restore it or modernise it in Renaissance form. The views of the experts, including Andrea Palladio, were split, but here the previous state was largely recreated. After Speyer Cathedral was badly damaged on several occasions the argument was likewise won by those who wanted to restore conformity with the remaining structure, while in the case of San Paolo fuori le Mura Pope Leo XII ended the argument about ‘Old’ or ‘New’ in 1825 by ordering a reconstruction.

When in 1937 during a discussion about modern architecture at Princeton University the Dean, Ely Jacques Kahn, suggested to his students rhetorically that if the prestigious old university were to be destroyed nobody would surely want to rebuild it in any modern form, he was shocked to find that the vast majority argued

in favour of a new building. At that time Modernist architecture was on the up in the USA and today the response would probably be different.

And in 1947 a committee of experts appointed by the Cathedral Council

recommended the complete reconstruction of Coventry’s destroyed cathedral. However, the design competition was won in 1951 by Basil Spence, the only entrant to combine the ruins with a new structure. When

The Schwarzhäupter-House in Riga, completely demolished after World War II, reconstructed from 1996 bis 2002

it is that buildings get reconstructed and when modernised depends in each instance on the state of the architectural debate and many other factors. This publication’s list of examples, split into ten sections, gives an overview of the motives involved.

The often emotionally led or dogmatically intransigent discussions about reconstruction should be included in the public debate about ‘cultural memory’, as this is itself a form of awareness. Part of tackling the issue of cultural memory is a “duplication of levels: of the awareness of objects and of the reflection of the terms of precisely this awareness.”

This means that the propositions of each point of view and the historical horizon must be included, as the key is to “specify the precise place in the present to which my historic design is going to refer as their vanishing point.” After the Second World War, the feeling of guilt for all the destruction and the dominance of the ‘International style’ hardly allowed any reconstructions in Germany. Thus it was only in 1959 on a visit to Warsaw that Rudolf Hillebrecht realised that Hanover, which had been rebuilt in a modern style under his direction, lacked an historical dimension and he himself then advocated a recon-

struction of the Leibnizhaus. The fact that the reconstructions in Eastern Europe since 1989 are a process of eliminating the Soviet era and a means of linking back to each country’s respective national traditions is very evident. So too is the link between the desire for reconstruction in Germany with the change of generation and dissatisfaction with how the cities had been rebuilt. Furthermore the handling of the topic of reconstruction in the post-War period is generally characterised by concepts of breaking with tradition and of distancing oneself from history by highlighting discontinuities and fragments. Reconstruction is by contrast borne by the wish for continuity and conformity.

However, this engineered recollection too is part of the contemporary creation of cultural identity. Therefore, even in the opinion of proponents of the Avant-garde such as Rem Koolhaas, “the gulf between preservation and modernity [ought] to be overcome”, as calling for restoration has long since been an integral part of the present. Reconstructions have just as much of a right to exist in present-day architecture as creative new constructions – a decision, however, needs to be taken in each individual case, taking into account the majority public view, on whether the design creates continuity or a break with the past.

Architects like Carlo Scarpa, Luigi Snozzi, Giorgio Grassi and Álvaro Siza have shown in exemplary fashion that when it comes to building within an historic context originality matters less than serving history and the people. When Siza was commissioned to rebuild the Chiado, the Old Town of Lisbon, he declared: “The question of the façades is not important to me”. However, as a result of the reconstruction he improved the standard of living and the quality of life in the area. Done this way there would (perhaps) be less argument about reconstruction.

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For centuries reconstructions have proved their worth - for all sorts of reasons T

he Romans used the term ‘fanum’ to describe a holy place that was separated from the ‘profanum’ situated in front of it. Separating out holy areas for gods, miracle workers and saints from the everyday world is a fundamental principle for generating sacred significance and is part and parcel of almost every religion and culture.

struction in the Second World War this did not happen in many cities, even though the majority of the public wanted such squares and buildings rebuilt. Even then Herbert von Einem was already warning: “What’s use is preservation to us if the natural cohesion that used to connect us with the testimony to former times can no longer be experienced.” Since the final third of the 20th century, with the emergence of a new generation the need has intensified in the midst of inhospitable urban spaces for the reconstruction of symbols of civic identity. The reconstructions in Hildesheim, Dresden, Frankfurt and Riga are an expression of the wish of a majority of the residents for public spaces to be designed as a means of preserving an area’s cultural memory.

Reconstruction in holy locations – religious and architectural continuity When and why a place is ascribed this importance can be based on a variety of different reasons. Places where ‘miracles’ or ‘apparitions’ occurred have, for instance, been ranked as being sacred, as have the places where saints or founders of religions were born, worked or died.

Holy mountains, copses, springs and caves, the holy River Ganges, the burning bush of the Old Testament and whole towns such as Jerusalem and Mecca became places bearing sacred meaning.

Holy locations developed in many cases into places of pilgrimage and thus also into significant economic factors. For centuries, whenever sacred buildings in a holy location have been damaged or destroyed they have been restored or rebuilt in exactly the same spot. In many cases this continuity related to the design of the building as well. Destroyed Greek temples were rebuilt in their old forms, as were the domes and minarets of Muslim mosques or the vaults and towers of Christian churches.

When the church of San Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome, built over the grave of the Apostle Paul, burnt down in 1823, Pope Leo XII immediately ordered that the building be reconstructed not only in the same place but also ‘in pristinum’, in its old style, as faith, he said, had become intertwined with its form over the centuries.

This approach also determined the countless reconstructions of religious buildings after the Second World War. While bitter debate often raged about how the cities were to be rebuilt, many destroyed churches were reproduced without discussion in – outwardly at least – their old form.

Reconstruction for national political and dynastic reasons Buildings reach into the present day as a testimony to bygone times and are therefore particularly well suited to directing people’s memories back into history way beyond the lifetime of any individual. John Ruskin

agery are in many cases ‘inventions’ and this is reflected too in a nation’s historic structures.

Reconstructing the symbols and images of a city

Warsaw’s Royal Palace after reconstruction (top) and in 1945 after being blown up (below)

even maintained that people could not remember at all without the help of architecture. As buildings firmly link the public’s historic consciousness with places of significance to the history of nation and state, they create a common past and thus a strong bond for the feeling of national togetherness and identity.

Architecture can also be used to demonstrate national, political or dynastic claims to power. Monuments and historic buildings therefore play a special role in political calculations and in the 19th century their preservation became a task for the state. ‘Les longs souvenirs font des grands peuples’ (Long memories create great peoples) was a saying of Charles de Montalembert, one of the fathers of French heritage preservation. It accompanied the country’s efforts to preserve, restore and reconstruct historic buildings and monuments. Following the devastating destruction in Poland, Jan Zachwatow-

icz declared in 1945: “The Germans, who wanted to annihilate us as a nation, also destroyed our architectural heritage.

The nation and our historic buildings are, however, as one and it is therefore positively our duty to rebuild them precisely as they were, as by doing so the nation and its heritage gets passed on to future generations.”

The link between architectural heritage and national memory also determined the reconstruction of Colonial Williamsburg in the USA and ‘French’ Quebec, as it did too the many reconstructions of national historical sites following the two World Wars and the collapse of the communist system in Eastern Europe. In order to satisfy claims of national identity, the respective notions of national expression were often ‘given a helping hand’ both on restorations and reconstructions. Traditions and national symbols and im-

The memory of individuals and of society is limited in duration to the human lifespan. Via symbolic media such as architecture and literature, however, a ‘cultural memory’ (Jan and Aleida Assmann) is created with a reach that is no longer limited to the memory of individuals, but matches instead the longevity of the fixed, physical symbols. Buildings are therefore able to convey concepts over long periods of time that give people and groups a cultural identity.

A city’s architecture is an essential part of the cultural memory, on which its residents base their consciousness of unity and character.

The image and history of a city are often condensed into a few buildings that stand in to represent the whole.

In the same way that the Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower and the Brandenburg Gate represent Rome, Paris and Berlin, most people associate their hometown with specific buildings, roads or squares. As important elements of cultural memory, such civic symbols are so integral to the residents’ identity and concept of who they are that in the event of these being lost there is generally a demand for their reconstruction. After the First World War, the most important buildings and squares of the destroyed cities in Belgium, northern France and East Prussia were therefore rebuilt in their original appearance with practically no discussion at all. Following the huge scale of de-

Reconstructing buildings to remember people and events The most heated argument about reconstruction in Germany raged shortly after the Second World War over the question of rebuilding the fully destroyed house of Goethe’s birth in Frankfurt am Main. Modern architects and preservationists had almost made up their minds not to reconstruct it, but those in favour won the day and the reconstructed building was officially opened in 1951. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the globe have since visited the house and the reconstruction has taken on the function of a memorial. The fact that it is a reproduction largely without any original elements is well known and any talk of it being a ‘fraud’ would be absurd.

The human memory is ‘topological’, i.e. structured by place. Architecture is therefore particularly able to help us recall the past. If a building is lost, its reproduction too is able to take on this task of preserving memories of people or events. A new building in a modern design and using ‘contemporary’ materials would, on the other hand, not have been able – even in the same location – to convey any real idea of the house in which Goethe was born and spent his formative years to the generations to come.

In order to remember people it has been customary since ancient times for the houses in which they were born, lived, worked and died to be preserved, restored and, where necessary, reconstructed. Millions make the pilgrimage to the house of Shakespeare’s birth in Stratford-uponAvon, to Luther’s house in Eisleben, to Rubens’ house in Antwerp, to Abra-

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Reconstruction and modern age

The Royal Palace of Lithuania (Lower Castle) in Vilnius, reconstructed in 2008

ham Lincoln’s log cabin in Illinois, to the house of Jeanne d’Arc in Orléans, to Robert Schumann’s house in Zwickau and to Henry Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond. For most visitors the fact that they are reconstructions does not matter. Historic forms can take us back into history even if they are not original. Reconstructions make it possible to get closer via architecture to people, their deeds and to historic events and they thus fulfil many general human needs and desires.

Archaeological econstructions It is part of an archaeologist’s work to put structures that have fallen into ruin back together again. If required for the construction, any missing elements get added in such a way that it is possible to distinguish the new parts from the historic. This approach, known as anastilosis, needs to be differentiated from ‘archaeological reconstructions’. These are not copies or reproductions – for example, based on drawings or pictures – of buildings that no longer exist, but ‘inventions’ by the archaeologists based on their current knowledge.

Usually the superstructures have to be designed hypothetically from the remnants of the foundations through comparison, analogy or the transfer of other findings. Even more than other forms of restoration archaeological reconstructions therefore reflect both the current status of relevant research and general artistic, historic and scientific views of the period in which they are undertaken.

Every form of reconstruction – including restoration – is a product of its time. It is a construct of history that can be dated again by future generations. By looking at the history of the reconstruction of early structures like pile dwellings and Stone Age settle-

Frankfurt /Main before World War II, Römerberg

reconstruction can also be retrospectively dated.

While reconstructions in the 19th century, such as the Saalburg Roman fort, were still very much guided by educational interests, archaeological reproductions are increasingly developing into leisure parks aimed at tourists, serving commercial interests and visitors’ supposed wishes through dramatisations of every kind.

One newer special form is ‘experimental archaeology’, where individuals using historic tools and in appropriate dress perform the reconstructions in front of an audience. The production of ‘living history’ is frequently becoming a part of marketing strategies in the media for history and leisure.

Reconstruction as an adaptation of antiquity – from drawing to animation

Frankfurt/Main 1947 and 2002, Römerberg

ments and also of Roman castles and fortifications, such as limes, the projection of contemporary ideas into

archaeological reconstructions can be clearly traced. The way in which reproductions were identified as a

As interest in classical antiquity grew ever greater through the course of the 15th century, the period’s architectural remains also gained increasingly in importance. The topography and monuments of ancient Rome in particular were not only the subject of literary research by the Humanists, but the remains of buildings also served as a means of studying the ancient architecture, its structure, design and proportions. From the middle of the 15th century drawings were produced based on Roman ruins. These were not only often excavated and precisely measured, but also reconstructed in drawn form.

The architects of the time thought that studying the historic buildings would help them to unscramble the rules of ancient architecture and thus open up the possibility not only of restoring the buildings but also of making practical use of this knowledge in a new form of ‘all’antica’ architecture. Alberti was already rec-

ommending in his architectural treatise of 1451 that historic buildings be drawn in plan and front view without any foreshortening through perspective in order to be able to record the works better and thus to utilise them for new designs. In a letter to Pope Leo X in 1519, Raphael proposed making an inventory of as many of Rome’s historic buildings as possible with the aim of restoring those “of which sufficient is still retained that they can be restored without doubt in the way that they must have been.”

Over the course of subsequent centuries, there developed in dealings with the historical buildings of classical antiquity on the one hand an ever better knowledge of the structures and on the other an increasingly ‘more realistic’ form of presenting reconstructions. Based on scientific research and investigation of a building’s architectural history, painters and architects, whose training included reconstructing buildings in drawn form, produced clear plans, perspective views and paintings. Historical paintings and panoramas already seemed to provide a direct insight into classical antiquity and with the possibilities of film and most recently with computer simulation and animation the virtually reconstructed world of ancient times is becoming something that can be directly experienced.

Reconstructing to restore the unity of an ensemble or to regain a unique space During the Renaissance, Leon Battista Alberti defined beauty as a state to which no changes could be made and nothing added. The notion that all parts should merge to form a harmonious whole applied in many eras to architecture and urban construction as well. Whenever a section of building within an ensemble de-

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Warsaw’s Old Town after being blown up by the SS (left) and rebuilt immediately after the Second World War (right)

signed as an entity or historically mature was destroyed, such areas down the ages were frequently restored. The most famous example is the reconstruction of the Campanile on St. Mark’s Square in Venice, which collapsed in 1902, and without which the whole square and surrounding area would have totally lost its look. In opposition to this restoration of continuity and conformity there were, however, repeated demands to place new buildings directly next to the old to form a contrast. As up until the end of the 19th century styles of architecture - even across relatively long periods - were interrelated and building methods, dimensions and materials remained relatively constant, this, nevertheless, rarely created such fractures as caused by modern architecture, which distanced itself from historic styles and sought a totally new form of expression with new materials and designs. In the post1945 concept of ‘Neues Bauen in alter Umgebung’ (A new style of building in old surroundings) it is autonomy, originality and contrast that dominate, not unity and continuity. However, even within the Modernist movement there is a lot of evidence in the works of the likes of Álvaro Siza, Luigi Snozzi, Carlo Scarpa and Giorgio Grassi of architects integrating their designs into an ensemble and that to them restoring a historic situation is more important than creating a dramatic break with history.

Where important interiors have been lost, especially in the case of theatre buildings, these were frequently reconstructed in order to regain proven spatial qualities or a much-loved atmosphere. Although most modern architects have a mindset opposed to reconstructions, there was seldom any discussion about the many copies of works by the classic exponents of Modernism. The regaining of exemplary models of one’s own genre is often judged differently to the reproduction of historical buildings.

Reconstructing ‘authentic spirit’ and ritual replication Western culture is defined by a linear perception of time. Time marches

inexorably on and is irreversible.

Therefore only ‘authentic’ historic buildings can remind us of bygone days. Original buildings reach back into history and for this reason are highly valued.

In cultures with a notion of cyclical time, of a continual recurrence of the same within the rhythm of daily and seasonal life and of cosmic or ruling cycles authentic buildings, by contrast, mean little. Of greater importance there are the location’s identity and the ability to preserve and pass on traditions within the cycle of events. While heritage preservation in the West is concerned with retaining original buildings as guarantors of memories of the past, the key factor for cultures with a cyclical view of time is passing on the ‘authentic spirit’ from one generation to the next. The physical structure can be lost, but ritual repetition is designed to guarantee eternal continuity. Location and ritual thus become the constant within the cycles of time.

Ritually demolishing and constructing a building anew or replicating it is a familiar practice in many cultures with a cyclical concept of time. Through these repetitions man, who continues the tradition and passes it on, becomes the living part of higher orders. How closely the new building is based on its predecessor

varies from culture to culture. In Japan, for example, the Isa Grand Shrine has for over 1,300 years been rebuilt with enormous effort every two decades based precisely on the example of the existing structure, which is then cleared away. The customary term for this process is ‘fukugen’, repetition of the original form. It is not the building that is alive, but the preservation and passing on of the authentic spirit. In many cultures of the Middle and Far East there are countless reconstructed and replicated buildings. Within this cultural context to ask about there age or ‘originality’ is relatively meaningless.

Reconstruction for the leisure and consumer world A form of tourism based around historic buildings existed as far back as the 18th century, albeit then undertaken in the main by aristocrats visiting the sights on their ‘grand tour’. As the educated classes began travelling in the 19th century, increasing numbers of people visited historic sites in order to see and experience great buildings of the past for themselves. This was accompanied by a systematic pepping up of the buildings in order to convey memorable, visual images to the visitors.

The mass tourism of the 20th and 21st

centuries has seen the development not only of major, global tourist industries, but also of wholly new ways of marketing history.

In many cases tourism brought great attention and thus financial assistance to historic sites. However, it also brought an increasing burden on the original structures and pressure to impart history to a lay public in an easily understandable way. As history is now often becoming staged, increasing numbers of new attractions, such as theme parks, trips through time, experimental archaeology or spectacular historic shows, are being invented. Within this context reconstructions are also being created that are frequently part of the ‘heritage crusade’ (David Lowenthal), i.e. of commercialisation strategies aimed at the tourist market. Some of these reconstructions have, however, since been added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.

In the maelstrom of purely commercial interests or tourism-based marketing reconstructions are reduced in many cases to superficial façades and become no more than tokenism. They then serve merely as a sales promotion element or are intended to distract attention from the fact that original historic buildings repeatedly get sacrificed to financial interests.

St. Michael’s Monastery, Kiev - Reconstructed from 1989

Reconstruction and the ‘honesty’ of Modernism In parallel with the ever better understanding of the historical development of building styles and as a form of compensation for the serious loss of architectural heritage due to industrialisation, historic buildings were in many cases reconstructed in the 19th century largely based on the notion that it was possible to ‘creatively’ capture how buildings used to be and then recreate them. John Ruskin, and subsequently the representatives of an emerging, scientifically oriented form of heritage preservation, described this style of ‘restoration’ as a ‘lie’ or a ‘falsification’ compared to the established original.

As Modernist architecture developed in the late 1900s, all of the historicising architecture of the outgoing century was disparagingly viewed as eclectic and thus uncreative and the recourse to historic forms discredited as a disguise, a falsehood and an inability to design anything based on the present. The notion that architecture has to map and express function and design directly and that the architect must design in a ‘contemporary’ style and may not orient himself on history led to Modernism’s ideology of ‘honesty’: if any intervention is to be made into a historic structure, this has to be identifiable as a contemporary modification. The implementation of such ‘honesty’ led to some brilliant designs, in which the layers of history are artistically displayed. However, it also led to totally bizarre demonstrations of a distancing from any historic form. This ideology also found its way into the ‘Venice Charter’ issued in 1964, in which the Western heritage preservation sector aligned itself with modern architects’ concept of honesty.

The notions of ‘truth’ and ‘honesty’ that were formulated by Modernism as a response to the ‘lies’ of Historicism are based on a supposed knowledge of what is ‘contemporary’ and ‘in keeping with the time’. However, the spectrum of contemporary architecture also includes reproductions, for reconstruction too is a part of present-day building activity.

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Reconstruction and modern age

Learning from the Koreans:

South Korea rebuilds Changgyeong Palace in Seoul S

The royal palace’s Honghwamun main gate c. 1900

Governor’s palace with attempt at rebuilding the gate in concrete c. 1990

Demolition of the governor’s palace in 1995

Preparations for the new, authentic reconstruction of the main gate

Virtual view of the royal palace’s central complex

outh Korea is currently going through an incredible economic boom. While after decades of Japanese occupation and the Korean War, the even now still divided country was one of the poorest and most backward on earth until well into the 1960s, South Korea has since become one of the most prosperous in just 40 years. It ranks 15th in the world and, as if it was the most natural thing ever, is hosting the G20 summit this autumn.

After hundreds of years as a monarchy, the country has been a stable democracy since the middle of the last century.

Two things have probably played a key part in this success: the creativity, hard work and discipline of its people and their deeply rooted attachment to the country’s traditions. It is second nature there to deal with the country’s long history in a positive way.

Korea was a kingdom of the Joseon Dynasty for five centuries up until 1910, when the Japanese occupation signalled its end.

The royal palace is the largest palace complex in Seoul and is able to convey an inkling of the early days of the Korean dynasties. However, in its current form the palace can only give a vague impression of how it looked in earlier times. During the Japanese occupation nearly all of the 330 buildings were destroyed or moved. However, the Gyeonghoeru Pavilion, supported by 48 pillars, and the imposing Genjeongjeon building undoubtedly convey an idea of the magnificent state in which the palace once existed.

You must not think of this old royal palace as being like any palace in Europe. It was made up of various large and small temple-like pavilions that accommodated the king, his family and the entire royal household, similar to the complexes in the ‘Forbidden City’ in Peking.

It was just 20 years ago, in 1990, that the Korean government resolved to restore the complex to its original condition. Two years earlier, in 1988, the main Heunghwamun gate, which the Japanese had moved to another location in Seoul in order to build the governor’s palace, had been moved back into place. The gov-

ernor’s palace was demolished in the 1990s and, but for a few still missing buildings, the royal palace was reconstructed in minute detail.

As we were able to see for ourselves on a visit to Seoul in September 2010, the country’s heri-

it became apparent that the reconstruction of the royal palace is seen as a great national project and is being unreservedly backed by the public. The sentiment there is definitely comparable to the sentiment in Poland during the reconstruction of Warsaw.

The Honghwamun main gate after reconstruction in 2010

The Honghwamun main gate: detail beneath the roof

Visit to Seoul: Wilhelm von Boddien (left), Park Yung-Keun, Director of the Royal Palace, Dr. Hans-Ulrich Seidt, German Ambassador, Kim Won-Ki, General Director of the Cultural Heritage Administration of Korea

tage preservation community is also wholeheartedly behind the project. In many discussions with art historians and heritage preservation specialists, which I was able to have thanks to introductions and great preparatory work from the German Embassy,

The people there simply cannot understand the endless debates in Germany over whether we do or do not have the right to reconstruct such buildings. They see such arguments as purely ideological. Lucky Korea!

Wilhelm von Boddien

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The reconstruction of the Schloss façades

The Palace façades will be financed exclusively through donations T

he extra cost of the Palace compared to a building of the same size built in a contemporary architectural style amounts to about 80 million Euros. This estimate for the creation of the historic baroque facades, including the Schlüter Courtyard, which require a great deal of hand work, is based on an offer which has been confirmed by an additional calculation done by a working group established by the State Conservator for Bavaria working together with a planning bureau.

Palace remains lie just below the surface.

Investigative Excavations seeking Palace Fragments Until the 1960s, dismantled fragments of the Palace, which had been rescued under Prof. Strauss before the demolition, were stored on the factory grounds of the former VEB Engineering firm in Berlin-Heinersdorf.

At that time the German Democratic Republic had sought in this way to silence the protests against the tearing down of the Palace.

Walter Ulbricht promised to rebuild the Palace somewhere else when the economic situation should improve. For this reason, many parts of the building were rescued and stored in Heinersdorf. However, after the construction of the State Council Building incorporating Portal IV, the Palace faded away from memory. The stored remains, together with other rubble, were used as landfill in a swampy area immediately adjacent to its former resting place in order to create a new industrial park.

And thus, a capital from one of the inset columns of a round-headed window in the “Parade” story of the Palace, such as, for example, were to be found in the main portico of the Schlüterhof, was dug up again in 1992 during the expansion of the foundation for a large cement mixing factory.

Naturally, one could reproduce recurring façade details in poured cement.

Then each part would be completely identical with each of the others, and thus the façade would have a monotonous effect.

Why are the Palace facades expensive?

The extra costs arise because hand work requires more time and is therefore more expensive than manufacturing modern façade elements. The beauty of the Palace facades arose from their liveliness … they had the effect of a gigantic sculpture. The carrying out of the plans by Schlüter and Eosander in an artistic and hand made manner, turned every detail into an individual sculpture in the artistic vocabulary of the respective artists. Between 1699 and 1716 hundreds of stone masons and sculptors worked to realize those plans.

Famous sculptors like Permoser, the master of the Dresden Zwinger Palace made the sculptures. The allegorical figures representing the four seasons in the form of herm-like pilasters supporting the balconies above Portals IV and V are ascribed to him. You can marvel at the strength of expression in the figures of Autumn and Winter which were saved and now decorate the Palace Portal which is part of the State Council Building.

Spring and Summer were damaged after the Palace demolition but were rescued.

Much has been saved They can be restored and are waiting to be built into the new Palace.

About 70% of the figurative sculptures of the Palace exterior still exist.

However, the stones of the cornices, windows, columns and capitals were

Façade detail from Portal IV, today in the State council Building

mostly lost and could only be found in fragments in the depots of the museums and the Bureau for Monuments. Copying them is relatively simple. Actually, the original Palace blue prints have been missing since the time of Schlüter and Eosander which ended in 1713. Nonetheless, the Palace as a whole is excellently

documented with thousands of detail and general views and hundreds of plans from the restoration phase.

The recovered original remains of the Palace provide additional information concerning the way in which the artists and craftsmen carved the sandstone. Two deposits of rubble are to be archeologically excavated for

Palace remains since here, in these locations, further valuable fragments can certainly be found.

The bunker mound of Friedrichshain received its layer of rubble in the late autumn of 1950 out of the demolition debris from the Palace Square façade, just before the addition of a 15 cm thick layer of topsoil. Thus here

Restoration to 18th century appearance It is exactly the little inaccuracies and differences in the work of the various artists and craftsmen which created the living quality that gave beauty to the Palace.

Therefore, the Palace exterior must be reproduced with the same methods and skills used 300 years ago.

The reconstruction of the Schloss faรงades

T h e B e r l i n e r s c h lo s s P o st | 25

Lost and found

Head of ram, found in 2010

Great Palace Yard, Portal II. The two geniusses were saved after demolition and are now in the Zeughaus of Berlin.

Crown, found in 2010

2005 found again in a garden, transported to our depot (above).

Waiting for return to the original place in Portal III 1950 (above) 1990 found on a meddow, lost again 1991

Genius (Fama), Portal III, Great Palace Yard

A

fter the demolition of the Berliner Schloss most sculptures of the Palace were completly destroyed by blasting the building in 1950. Some of them remained, but got lost. Others were hidden by citizens of Berlin.

After the reunification of Germany we advertised "Lost to be found". Luckely every year citizens in and around Berlin call us and give us good news to save those fragments for the reconstruction of the Palace.

26 | T h e B e r l i n e r s c h lo s s P o st

The reconstruction of the Schloss facades

There are plenty of excellent sculptors!

Contrary to the opinion of many palace critics an entire industry is looking forward eagerly to its reconstruction. Great masters of their trade are dreaming of finally being able to start work.

■ If parts or the whole of a building need to be reconstructed, a multitude of materials are required in order to produce an authentic, professional result in terms of heritage preservation.

First and foremost, all of the building files, if possible including detailed drawings, comprehensive, informative photographic material and fragments of the lost building should be available so that the reconstructed, new building matches the original structure precisely in design, dimensions, materials and colour. Sadly, apart from a few drawings for repairs, the comprehensive stock of Berlin Palace building files has been lost as a result of the War. In order to be able to recreate the missing plans required for the reconstruction it was therefore necessary to take a different route.

A hand-drawn layout (a land registry plan) from 1879, which shows the palace in its outer dimensions with centimetre-precision, was found in the Berlin-Mitte Land Survey Office. Also unearthed were numerous photogrammetric photographs (40 x 40cm glass plates) in the Brandenburg State Monuments and Historic Buildings Office in Wünsdorf and lots of photographs of the palace ruins taken in 1950. As it was more practical and accurate, inches were used as the unit of measurement, this being the unit used at the time the palace was initially built.

We were delighted to receive an offer from the Stonemasons and Stone Sculptors’ Guild to have cut stones for the palace produced as part of their journeyman exams.

Our Association only has to cover the cost of materials and transportation. The first journeyman’s piece, a window reveal for Schlüter’s parade floor level, was recently delivered to us and is on show in the information centre on Hausvogteiplatz.

We would like to thank the Guild sincerely for this gracious offer.

Saxony Sandstone Works near Dresden. Based on the plaster model, the protoype of the colossal capitals of portals I and II is now being carved in sandstone

Huge capital of portals I and II. Finished prototype hewn from sandstone

Photo of the capital of portals I and II taken in 1950 (left) and finished 1:1 model to act as a template for creating it in sandstone (right)

Schlüter’s most important work of art on the outer palace façades, the great cartouche in portal I, is finished

Allegory of Prussia in the Schlüter Courtyard: Borussia in creation: from l. to r.: 1:1 clay model, silicone and plaster mould, plaster cast.

Models designed by sculptor Matthias Körner

T h e B e r l i n e r s c h lo s s P o st | 27

The reconstruction of the Schloss façades

The two models of the Schlüter Courtyard capitals enable all of the courtyard’s huge capitals now to be carved in sandstone. Sculptor: Berhard Lankers

Corinthian capital of the enormous Schlüter Courtyard columns; top right the pilaster capital

Eosander Portal in the west façade. Centre arch decorative sculpture. 1:1 reproduction as template for the creation in sandstone

Eagle, Schlüter window bay

Cornice ancone Entablature over portal I - Photo from 1900 and 2007 prototype

Balusters of the great balustrade

Schlüter window bay: Lion’s head and ram’s head

Schlüter façade, window hood mould, first floor

Eagle modellinos - Schlüter façade, mezzanine.

Sculptor: Werner Schmelter

Top decoration for portal I cartouche. Made in sandstone. Sculptor: Eckart Böhm

From the top: classical order of portals I - VI: Corinthian capital, Ionic capital and Doric/Tuscan capital

Plaster cast of a decorative element

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The reconstruction of the Schloss façades

The heraldic reliefs above the windows of Eosander’s projected façade

Eosander’s projected western end of the Lustgarten façade looked plainer than the Schlüter façades. Its only decorative sculptures were the reliefs under the window hoods. All of them were lost when the palace was blown up. Sculptors Eckhart Böhm, Matthias Körner and Werner Schmelter have masterfully reproduced them so that they can now be sculpted in sandstone

Also available to the sandstone sculptors is a model of the style of window hood mould used on the first floor

The reconstruction of the Schloss façades

T H E B e r l i n e r s c h lo s s P OST | Se i te 29

Computer-aided 3D scan

Novel method being used for reconstruction of portal IV

Historic picture of the cartouche showing the eagle and crown removed in 1963

Portal IV (Liebknecht Portal) in the State Council building

As the only large re-used piece of the old palace portal IV has been preserved. It became a socialist relic and was integrated into the State Council building as the ‘Liebknecht Portal’ in 1963. However it was not integrated in its entirety and only the decorative sculptural work is the original. The sandstone walls were copied from the original stones, as they had been peppered with artillery rounds and machine-gun fire during the final battles of April 1945.

Using a novel procedure involving a 3D scanner, the sculptural decorations have been scanned and saved on computer. Using a plastic die casting process, this data is now to be turned via a robot into 1:1 model templates in 3D form, which will then be copied in sandstone by the sculptors for building into the palace. Before that is done the die cast forms will be retouched by the sculptors and partially remodelled, as the Lieb-

knecht Portal’s sculptures also originally had bullet holes in them. Back at the time these were either patched up, if they were relatively big, or in the case of smaller ones sanded down. The portal’s sculptures are thus no longer in their pre-War condition,

Palladian arch in portal IV, consisting of arch, Fama and eagle cartouche

for which there is excellent photographic evidence.

Ideology also played a part: the Prussian eagle was removed from the large eagle cartouche in the portal’s Palladian arch and the arbitrary dates of 1713 – 1963 added in its place. 1963 was when the

Pheme, the herald of fame and renown, on the left within the arch

State Council building was officially opened. So were the dates, perhaps, supposed to stand for ‘250 years of the GDR’?

Thanks to the historic photographs such changes can be seen and by modifying the models can be undone. The copy of the copy is

In detail

thus once again the same as the actual portal IV. NB: Berlin will in future have two examples of portal IV: one in the listed State Council building and one back in its old position within the Lustgarten façade of the palace.

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The reconstruction of the Schloss faรงades

Detail view of the autumn pilaster

Herm pilaster below the parade floor balcony: allegory to autumn by Balthasar Permoser

Pheme, on the right in the arch

Herm pilaster below the parade floor balcony: allegory to winter by Balthasar Permoser

Pilaster capital top left

Corinthian capital within the portal

T h e B e r l i n e r s c h lo s s P o st | 3 1

The Humboldtforum

The Humboldt Forum – Palatial gateway to the world

by Prof. Dr. Hermann Parzinger, President of Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Culture Heritage Foundation)

Crowds gather for a summer concert in Berlin’s Lustgarten

Culture shapes major cities n Now that there is nothing more to stand in the way of the Humboldt Forum being built within the framework of Berlin Palace, an increasing number of dissenting voices have been heard recently in various media outlets questioning the proposed use of the Forum, which, like its creation, was also passed by resolution of the German government. The plans lack a ‘big idea’, they say. This view can only be based on ignorance, though it has to be admitted that the proposals could also evidently have been communicated better.

Between now and its opening in 2018, the Humboldt Forum will be going through a process of ongoing intellectual development and design around what is already a visible core. The tasks associated with the construction of the Humboldt Forum in terms of the material to be conveyed and the concepts

W

ith the Humboldt Forum acting as a site of world culture, Berlin will within a few years possess a cultural centre of national and international aura. We can see around the globe how cultural projects – realised with great flair and considerable financial effort – give a boost to major cities’ world renown and even have Eremitage St. Petersburg

the effect of defining national selfperception and identity. It is, indeed, often museums that play a particular role in this. The strategy here often lies in a strongly symbolic combination of cultural heritage and forward-looking concepts. Such projects find their effective expression in grand architectural gestures.

to be developed are very complex. However, it is already possible to formulate its central message, which represents the core guiding principles.

Professor Hermann Parzinger, the President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, is currently leading work on producing a brochure that will comprehensively describe the Humboldt Forum in respect of its diverse roles, opportunities, educational offerings and exhibitions. This will be published in a large print-run in the autumn and then distributed to key opinion-formers at all levels of society, to interested members of the general public and, of course, to the media.

Here in advance of this are a few thoughts from the contents of the brochure that appear to us to be of key significance:

Paris began this process way back in the 1980s with the glass pyramids in the courtyard of the Louvre acting both as a new source of light and enlarged entrance, while the Musée du Quai Branly, opened in 2006 as an outstanding centre of non-European art and culture, formed the final such development to date in the French Grand Louvre Paris

capital. In Madrid, the Prado’s new entrance and extension gave it a new significance, while by roofing over its inner courtyard and utilising the space in a very modern way the British Museum in London created a totally different museum feel. Here too nonEuropean exhibits are now consciously juxtaposed with early Euro-

pean and the Middle Eastern art.

Also in countries that have experienced perpetual political upheaval and the dawning of new eras, major cultural projects are playing a key role in defining how they see themselves.

In St. Petersburg, for example, the Hermitage’s master plan for 2014 provides for modern museum strate-

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Photographer: Peter Sondermann, Berlin, Förderverein Berliner Schloss, eldaco, Berlin

The Humboldtforum

Museum Island with Berlin Palace: a centre of world cultures, art and science in the heart of the city

Berlin’s opportunities are unique gies and methods of presentation. The Pushkin Museum in Moscow is also getting itself fit for the 21st century with the creation of an outstanding cultural complex featuring an additional gallery, library and concert hall, which will be on a par with any of the great museums of the world.

In Peking the National Museum is undergoing an impressive extension that will make it the world’s largest museum building, while hundreds of other museums are being built all across the country. In the Gulf a prosperous society is trying with the help of futuristic museum architecture and imported museum know-how to create a cultural basis combined with a desire for a modern world view.

All of these examples show just one thing: global cities blossom and develop an absolutely magical magnetic draw when at their very heart they live and breathe culture. Nothing defines a country’s image in the world more powerfully than its cultural centres.

Musée du quai Branly Paris

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he welcome reunification of the city after decades of division creates a great opportunity to reshape the historic heart of Berlin in a style that picks up on Prussia’s cultural achievements in the 19th century. It was here over many centuries that the outstanding cultural and artistic treasures of Western tradition were collected together and from here that academic curiosity honed in on the alien and different in the world. The challenge now is to refine this urbane core into an intellectual centre that will have a defining impact on Berlin.

Following German reunification, the immense complex of collections of art and culture from Europe and the Middle East on Berlin’s Museum Island received a veritable boost in public perception through the coming together of the divided museum inventories and the renovation and further extension of the buildings as part of the Museum Island master plan. And it is a perception that gets ever more firmly rooted with each passing year. The Humboldt Forum in the now to be partially reconstructed Berlin Palace on the other side of the Pleasure Gardens (Lustgar-

ten) will create an outstanding centre for the art and culture of Asia, Africa, America, Australia and Oceania. With this composition of buildings Berlin will become one of the leading cultural and museum cities anywhere in the world. This is possible because only Berlin combines this wealth of collections from around the globe within one museum institution: the State Museums of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

And only in Berlin, with the Museum Island and Humboldt Forum, can such an impressive and meaningful centre of world National Museum Beijing

cultures be created, because here – as a result of the conflicting ideologies of a fateful history – the space required still exists right in the heart of a major global city. What is even more important, however, is that in doing so we are showing our country’s intellectual willingness to shape the geographical centrepiece of our capital not in a self-focussed way but in a style that stands for healthy curiosity and openness towards other cultures. Equally this place will also be able to contribute towards the process of self-affirmation in a globally interconnected world.

T h e B e r l i n e r s c h lo s s P o st | 33

The Humboldtforum

Fragment of a sermon scene

Persian court lady

God Shiva and family

Asian Art Museum, Berlin State Museums, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation

Asian Art Museum, Berlin State Museums, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation

Asian Art Museum, Berlin State Museums, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation

World Heritage Site cements Berlin’s reputation as a capital of culture

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useum Island was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in the year 2000. Its museums house examples of European and Middle Eastern culture and art from ancient times through to the 19th century.

Following refurbishment, the high temple of art, the Old National Gallery (Alte Nationalgalerie) was reopened in its former glory in 2001. Five years later, the neo-Renaissance Bode Museum was reborn in wonderful style.

This ensemble was then added to in 2009, when after decades as a ruin the New Museum (Neue Museum) rose like a phoenix from the ashes. Fascinating people ever since, the New Museum tells three stories at once: the history of the building, the history of museum presentation and the history of the exhibits on display there. If you compare the buildings with each other, then you appreciate that no two are alike. Each has its own history.

It is precisely this diversity that fascinates visitors from all over the world.

Currently taking shape, the new entrance building, the James Simon Gallery, epitomises the Museum Island’s ongoing development in the 21st century. It will accommodate space for special exhibitions and other functions that is lacking in the other buildings, yet is urgently needed. The entrance building will lead from the south into the Perga-

mon Museum, which as part of its refurbishment is to get a fourth wing along the ‘Kupfergraben’ cut and will thus offer a globally unique continuous walkway through the architectural history of antiquity from Ancient Egypt, the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world all the way to Egypt’s early Islamic era. The Museum Island master plan ultimately concludes with completion of what is known as the Archaeological Promenade: this will link the museum’s courtyards, sunk one level deeper as part of the renovation, via a series of underground galleries. This will thus create an extended, interdisciplinary exhibition space that will tackle issues spanning geography and time with changing exhibits and content.

The Humboldt Forum creates a place of reflection in a globally integrated world

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he Humboldt Forum within Berlin Palace brings with it a unique opportunity not only to shape this capital city site of great historic importance, city planning significance and international allure in a public, high quality fashion, but also to give it a fascinating purpose: the cultures of the world will in a sense become stakeholders in the most distinguished location in Germany. Berlin and the whole country are thus able to take on a challenge of international significance in an extremely effective way. There is probably no other city that possesses such genuine credentials for doing this – credentials linked to name Humboldt.

The Humboldt Forum in Berlin Palace will become a new kind of centre for experiencing art and culture. Its name is a reference to the legacy of brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, who at the start of the 19th century did groundbreaking work in researching foreign cultures and thus for global understanding. In becoming this new centre, the Humboldt Forum will not only add Berlin’s unique non-European collections to the artistic and cultural treasures already brought together on Museum Island, but will also innovatively combine the institutions of museum, library and university, thus creating links between

the historic collections and the burning questions of today.

The Humboldt Forum will provide an experience of non-European art and culture, thus imparting knowledge about the world, and will facilitate intercultural encounters, thus arousing curiosity and generating a fascination for other worlds. Finding sustainable ways of dealing with the alien and the different is a matter of survival for the cultures of the world, which in an era of globalisation are coming face-to-face with each other with unprecedented plurality, speed and complexity. Understanding cultural diversity and being prepared to enter into a dialogue are important prerequisites for shaping our future.

The Humboldt Forum is essential because Germany in particular needs a place for exchanging views, objectives and experiences with cultures and societies of different kinds.

The centre of the German capital offers in the shape of the Humboldt Forum a place the like of which does not yet exist anywhere else in the world. The Humboldt Forum is therefore not just something for Berlin and Germany, but can also become a treasure for the entire world – the Humboldt Forum can become a world centre of globalisation!

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The Humboldtforum

Representation of Buddha Asian Art Museum

Past contained within the future

T

he transformation of what was once the Hohenzollern palace into a place of world art and culture and its dialogue with the sciences has a certain inner logic: it could almost be called a belated transformation of Prussia and the revitalisation of its museums and scientific and educa-

tional institutions for the benefit of the future of reunified Germany. It is in effect Prussia’s great achievement that will form the core of the Humboldt Forum: its wealth of non-European art and culture encyclopaedically compiled against the background of its educational ideals.

The notion of the Humboldt Forum is closely tied to the history of the location

T

he concept of the Humboldt Forum has developed from the location’s history and gains particular legitimacy from this: museums, library and university collections had

their common nucleus in the palace’s Brandenburg-Prussian chambers of art and curiosities.

They are now returning to the place of their origin.

King Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s tea salon in Berlin Palace Design: Karl Friedrich Schinkel

The concept embodies the cosmopolitan Humboldt world view

T

he joint forum of museums, library and university bears the name Humboldt because the brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt are not only closely associated with this location, but are also seen as guiding figures in the Humboldt Forum’s concept: Wilhelm stands for the importance of the classical history of European ideas and thought, for the understanding of non-European cultures, the significance of language in comprehending art and culture, the bringing together of museum, university and library and for a far-

reaching educational policy offensive.

Alexander symbolises curiosity for the world, an open-minded description of foreign cultures, cross-disciplinary exploration and research of America and Asia and the concept of an inseparable unity of nature and culture. Indeed, Berlin Palace is one of the places where Alexander von Humboldt was able to present and debate these ideas, as King Friedrich Wilhelm IV regularly invited him, along with academics Leopold von Ranke, Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling,

Barthold Georg Niebuhr and architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, to gatherings in the palace’s tea salon.

Both Wilhelm and Alexander were shaped by a cosmopolitan world view that was based on the equality of world cultures. They stand for enlightenment and an inquisitive interest in that which is different and alien in the world.

What two hundred years ago was just a model, supported by a few individuals, is what we can bring to concrete fruition in the heart of Berlin today.

Representations of Buddha, Asian Art Museum, Berlin State Museums, Gandhara, 1st century AD © Berlin State Museums. Photographer: Jürgen Liepe

T h e B e r l i n e r s c h lo s s P o st | 35

The Humboldtforum

Imperial throne Asian Art Museum, Berlin State Museums, Qing Dynasty, China, 17th century © Berlin State Museums.

Photographer: Jürgen Liepe

Museums, library and university jointly shape the Humboldt Forum

The non-European collections must return to the heart of Berlin

T

T

hree institutions will design the Humboldt Forum: the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Berlin Humboldt University and Berlin Central and State Library. The largest area will be taken by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

This will be used for its Berlin State Museums’ non-European collections, which are currently still split between the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asiatic Art in the outlying Dahlem suburb. These collections cover well over 500,000 artefacts and works of art from every continent, supplemented by unique audio and video material. Together they form one of the richest portfolios of non-European art and culture anywhere in the world. Berlin Central and State Library offers a comprehensive range of services. It uses diverse forms of media for its attractive core areas of dance, drama, film, art and music and provides a

modern teaching library for children and young adults. Based on its copious university collections, the third partner, Berlin Humboldt University, is planning a ‘Humboldt Lab’ with regularly changing exhibitions and events.

The Humboldt Forum is drawing on the idea of the Centre Pompidou with its combination of public library, exhibition areas and events centre and developing this further for the needs and requirements of a globalised world in the 21st century. As part of an integrated concept of how the Forum will be used, museums, library and university will pool their strengths and differing areas of expertise, creating a living space, generating and imparting knowledge on the cultures of the world.

Continuing in the spirit of the von Humboldt brothers, the Humboldt Forum will bring the entire world into view.

he Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation’s non-European collections, split between its Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asiatic Art, have been housed since the Second World War in Dahlem on the southwestern periphery of Berlin. Other important collections, such as the paintings of the ‘Gemäldegalerie’, the graphic art of the ‘Kupferstichkabinett’, the sculpture collection and the Museum of Islamic Art moved out of Dahlem into new premises or to their old locations in the centre of Berlin. Left in Dahlem was a – poorly visited – body of nonEuropean art and culture, which was now robbed of any juxtaposition with the art and culture of Europe and the Middle East. This unity needs to be restored!

By moving out of Dahlem into the centre of Berlin and regaining

their proximity to Museum Island, the nonEuropean collections will be coming back into an ensemble where they will finally lose the disparaging stigma of just being exotic. That too is part of any equitable presentation and perception of world cultures. Indeed, the Louvre now also displays its gallery of masterpieces of non-European art and everyone there is proud of having overcome world art hierarchies. The British Museum in London now also puts great store in the juxtaposition of the European and non-European.

The great universal museums are thus taking into account their visitors’ demands. It is abundantly clear: today’s museum-goers and people with an interest in culture have long since been thinking in global dimensions.

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The Humboldtforum

Exhibition of European Expressionist painting and ancient African art Ethnological Museum: Sculpture of a dignitary from the grassland of Cameroon, c. 1700

Europe’s modern era: inspired by non-European art and culture

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ontemporary visual art in the 21st century is global, embedded in wide-reaching networks that have an increasingly strong influence on each other. Yet the roots of this interaction go back much farther: the modern era’s great epoch-making change at the start of the 20th century was triggered in large part by the sustained influence of art from overseas.

Artists such as Pablo Picasso and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner discovered in the collections of the ethnology mu-

seums totally new sources of inspiration and expressive energy, which resulted in a fundamental transformation in their creative work and heralded a new era of art. Sculptures from Africa and Oceania played a particularly key role in this and nonEuropean influences are clear to see in the works of many major artists of the modern era. They opened our eyes to the aesthetic dimension of this foreign art.

World art in Berlin

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ormer French President Jacques Chirac hit the nail on the head when he said in 1995 that the Louvre could not remain a really great museum if it continued to ignore the art of 70 percent of the world’s population. The outstanding quality of the

Prussian Cultural Heritage – Berlin State Museums’ non-European collections particularly underlines this statement. They include masterpieces of world art from every continent with an incredibly impressive aesthetic effect.

The Humboldt Forum will enable world cultures to be perceived in a new way

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he Humboldt Forum will be fundamentally different from a traditional ethnology museum and will be split into three core components: the Agora, the Workshops of Knowledge

and the exhibition areas.

The Agora on the ground floor is the starting point that will attune the visitors to the diversity of world cultures and their manifestations and bring

them into initial contact with these. A multi-purpose room and auditorium are envisaged here for performances and theatrical, musical and film events. Traditional and experimental theatre from all over the world will bring popular traditions of dramatic art to life, making them understandable to a broad public. A music stage will be able to bring the sounds of every continent into the heart of Berlin and thus establish interconnections between traditional bodies of music and present day movements.

Special exhibition areas will enable visitors to experience the latest developments in modern art from Africa, America and Asia, and, like seismographs, will thus show social trends.

Indeed, the Humboldt Forum must be not just a place for the historic but for the contemporary as well!

This makes the Agora – including in its role as a place of contemplation

and reflection – an integral part of our presentation of world cultures. As a forum for the academic sciences, culture and politics, the Agora will also become a place of the spoken word, where topical social policy themes will be publicly debated by high-calibre panels of selected experts.

The Agora will form the heart of the Humboldt Forum and at the same time define its beat. The respective core areas, operated autonomously by the institutions concerned, will also be permeated by a dense network of common initiatives, which will unfold in the attractive and vibrant events space of the Agora and radiate into the exhibition areas of the floors above. In this way the Forum will be able to create links from the museums’ historic collections to the issues of the present day and vice versa.

New opportunities for cultural and intercultural learning

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he three partners within the Humboldt Forum will be collaborating very closely on cultural education and the imparting of knowledge.

It is hoped that children and young adults in particular will be introduced to art and culture here in a special way and that through the teaching of information skills they will be enabled to gain new insights on their own. By having cultural, educational and re-

search institutions working together, plus a supporting programme of events (in a pupil academy / lab) within the Humboldt Forum, it will thus be possible to put over the special aspects of the cultures of Africa, America, Asia, Australia and Oceania in relation to their interaction with Europe. This will be done with a variety of different emphases and utilising all the media of written and visual

culture, theatre, music and film.

In the Humboldt Forum knowledge will be made available in the most comprehensive and modern of ways.

From this knowledge will grow understanding and a willingness to be at one with the cultures of the world.

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The Humboldtforum

Asian Art Museum, Berlin State Museums. Photographer: Jürgen Liepe

The Humboldt Forum will highlight continental diversity

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n the exhibition areas visitors will be able to go on a journey around the world that will open up to them new ways of understanding cultural interrelationships and artistic trends.

The aim is that each continent will gain here in profile in respect of the wealth of visual, acoustic and sensual experiences it provides.

Our objective here is not to pro-

duce a traditional, permanent exhibition, but rather an open, porous, transformable structure that picks up on the diversity, changes, opportunities and risks of our time, discerningly reflects the collections’ contemporary references and makes underlying mechanisms of man’s actions understandable from an historic perspective.

Understanding historic processes to carry out modern causal research

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ne element playing an important role in the Humboldt Forum will be special exhibitions devoted to the core issues of our time: globalisation, migration, climate change, megacities and many more. Many of the issues and problems that occupy our world today are by no means new.

Migration, for example, is no presentday phenomenon, but has been a factor accompanying the course of man’s entire history. The consequences of this range from so-called

multicultural societies all the way to processes of population overlay. The same applies to the diverse causes and economic, political and social effects of climate change. Megacities, too, are not solely a feature of our time.

With the help of the non-European collections we will be able in the Humboldt Forum to tell these stories in an extraordinarily vivid way, to explain historic processes and to demonstrate their causes.

The Humboldt Forum as a vision for the 21st century

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f Berlin’s Museum Island as a ‘sanctuary for art and science’ featuring the art and culture of Europe and the

Middle East was the great vision of the 19th century, then the Humboldt Forum in Berlin Palace is the further

development of this vision at the start of the 21st century. We are thus setting ourselves the task of reacting in appropriate fashion to the requirements of a globalised world. That Germany is accepting this challenge at its most distinguished location in the historic centre of its capital city is a very special gesture. The challenge is to create here a new form of access to the cultures of the world that will not be a purely museum-like centre, but that will also be able to build links between the past and the pressing topics and issues of our time.

In the interplay with Museum Island the equal status of the world’s cultures will be made visible and visitors will be able to experience the cultural and artistic aspects of man’s history in a totally new way. It is on fertile soil such as this that knowledge of the world grows. Knowledge and education are the decisive keys to respect and tolerance towards foreign cultures, without which it is impossible for the peoples of the world to live together in peace. And this too is the extraordinarily human message behind the Humboldt Forum’s grand

projet. We are thus referencing here – in effect taking recourse to the best of Prussia – our great tradition as a nation of knowledge and culture and are developing from this a new vision for the future. The Humboldt Forum brings with it a great opportunity to develop from these traditions a new chapter in the integration of our country into the community of the peoples of the world.

We must not waste this opportunity!

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Exhibition design in the Berlin Humboldtforum

by Barbara Holzer

The historical Berliner Schloss is being rebuilt in the centre of the German capital and precisely reconstructed to a great extent. The project was acontentious issue among the population and experts alike. Thus the quality of the material exhibited in the spacious rooms of the future Humboldtforum, which is conceived as a cosmopolitan forum for social and cultural exchange, is all the more essential. It is based on the idea of pooling a wide range of material from different cultures around the world to encourage artistic and academic dialogue in the centre of Berlin.

The Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art in the Berlin districtof Dahlem will therefore be based in the Humboldtforum in the future. It is intended as a special place for the art and culture of Asia, Africa, America, Australia and Oceania. In 2010, an open competition

throughout Europe was announced with the aim of developing the exhibition architecture for both museums. In view of the controversy concerning the Stadtschloss, the exhibition architecture and the presentation of the exceptional collections assumes the complex task of achieving a coherent connection between the building shell and its content.

The open competition process allowed a wide range of different design offices to take part. Hence it was impossible to predict the number and quality of the entered concepts. Since the design task was for a very large, extremely prestigious museum space, both a high degree of design quality and a recognisable development potential were decisive for the entered work.

So the competition jury recommended an additional assessment round with a reduced number of

competition participants. Four teams were chosen from among the 16 entries to develop their design further in a negotiation process in which the identity of those shortlisted was made public.

It was good and important that all participants followed that recommendation, because the competition winners will face a challenging task: The large, extensive collections with numerous significant exhibits must be accommodated in rooms that were not originally conceived for the purpose of presenting exhibits. The architecture of the largely reconstructed Stadtschloss is designed symmetrically, resulting in strict, uniform spatial proportions.

The floor plan organisation follows a serial, repetitive system. Around 17,500 m2 of the total 41,000 m2 of usable space have been allocated to the two museums’ exhibitions on the second and third floors. Not only the

size of the exhibitions, but also the factor of time will be a challenge. The yearsof intensive collaboration between exhibition architects, museum representatives, academia and other participating institutions and authorities require a high level of professionalism and considerable resilience. Ideas and approaches to design must bear up to the extremely long expected planning period of seven years and yet be able to develop further.

In the second round of the selection process, the design by Ralph Appelbaum Associates and malsyteufel was chosen. We were especially impressed by the AmericanGerman team’s diverse approaches to design. Both partners also have the necessary experience and references for a project of this size and period. Ralph Appelbaum Associates is a globally operative office based in New York, London and Beijing. Like

malsyteufel, which was founded by Prof. Victor Malsy and Prof. Philipp Teufel, the practice has twenty years of successful experience in exhibition design. The presented design highlights the team’s ability to effectively combine different professional competences while expressing an individual character.

The design concept highlights and strengthens the intention and potential of the Humboldtforum. The scenographers apply the Humboldts’ philosophy to the present and the future, thereby stressing its relevance today. Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt valued dialogue in their important intellectual undertakings: exchange – a movement between intellectual life and the outside world. Both brothers tapped new cultural horizons by expanding their knowledge through linguistic studies and education, as well as investigation and scientific

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research. Another impressive aspect of the entry was its precise analysis of the Stadtschloss architecture. With the aim of achieving unity through diversity, Ralph Appelbaum Associates and malsyteufel created sensible relationships between space and content. Their simple, flexible and adaptable exhibition architecture represents an exciting contrast to the reconstructed building.

The scenographers also use a Humboldt-quote as the motto for their exhibition presentation: “We step out of the realm of objects and into the realm of impressions.” They use emotionally appealing, physically tangible and large-scale presentations. They pick up on the atmospheric appearances of the two existing museums in Dahlem and interpret and present them in a special form for the new location in the Stadtschloss. The design thereby achieves a plausible evolution to present the Dahlem collections.

The designers provide specific, yet mutually connected, coherent solutions for both the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art. Their conceptual approach fulfils the high standards for the forwardlooking handling of historical collections. They take the requirements of

the curators responsible for the content into account, as well as those of the visitors with varying prior insight and horizons.

As a member of the competition jury, I consider the final result to be very positive. I am convinced that the most suitable applicant was chosen. The work radiates the successful competence and experience necessary to master a planned task of such immense scale and complexity. This aspect should not be overlooked, since the choice of the exhibition designers for a task of this size means years of intensive collaboration. It is therefore important that the project is handled with a consistent approach and a design hallmark that is apparent throughout all of the exhibition spaces.

The project may benefit from the fact that the chosen team has a fresh outsider’s view resulting from international cooperation. The design shows that they are able to free themselves from the controversial debate on the Stadtschloss and regard the strict architecture as a challenge.

Well-presented content creates a coherent unity of inner and outer elements, thereby strengthening acceptanceofthedisputedStadtschloss building.

Ralph Appelbaum Associates and malsyteufel have above all shown through their exact analytical approach that they have the required grasp of the complex, large-scale architecture of the Stadtschloss. The repetitive room structure cannot be perceived as an exhibition space at

first glance. They have also understood the idea of the Humboldtforum in pursuing a global aim, namely to present a distillation of cultures and international cultural history.

I am convinced that Ralph Appelbaum Associates and malsyteufel

will make a significant contribution towards increasing public acceptance of the controversial Stadtschloss reconstruction, making the future exhibition in the Humboldtforum always worth a visit in the heart of Berlin.

Tender invitation: Stiftung Berliner Schloss – Humboldtforum | Client: Stiftung Berliner Schloss – Humboldtforum | represented by: Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung, Referat A 2, Beate Hückelheim-Kaune, Philipp Dittrich; Referat IV 1, Volker Grübener, Ines Miersch-Süß – till may 2011, Daniela Ramdani, Nina Wengatz – since september 2011 | user: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum und Museum für Asiatische Kunst | Site: Berliner Schloss – Humboldtforum,

client: Dr. Sigrid Bias-Engels, BKM; Günter Hoffmann, BMVBS; Manfred Rettig, speaker SBS-HF; Prof.

Dr. Hermann Parzinger, president SPK; Prof. Dr. Michael Eissenhauer, general director SMB;

Prof. Barbara Holzer, Zürich; Prof.

Dr. Viola König, SMB – Ethnologisches Museum; Prof. Dr. Klaas Ruitenbeek, SMB – Museum für Asiatische Kunst; Jette Sandahl, Kopenhagen; Astrid Bornheim, Berlin; Martin Heller, Zürich; Dan Rahimi, Toronto; Monika Zessnik, SMB; Dr. Peter Junge, SMB - EM; Raffael Gadebusch, SMB - AKU | Contracted on: Ralph Appelbaum Associates, New York/London; malsyteufel, Willich | start of project design: 04/2012 | start of construction: 09/2016 – completion: 02/2019 | Areas: Ethnologisches Museum ca.

10.000 m2 | Museum für Asiatische Kunst ca. 5.000 m2 | Other exhibition space: ca. 3.000 m2 | Total exhibition space: ca. 18.000 m2 | total costs: 32 Mio. Euro

Interdisciplinary open competition: jury: expert jurors: Prof. Barbara Holzer, Zürich; Martin Heller, Zürich; Bernd Hoge, Paris; Dr. Albert Lutz, Zürich; Prof. Uwe J. Reinhardt, Stuttgart; Jette Sandahl, Kopenhagen | jurors representing the

16 participants in the open competition: prizes: one prize: Ralph Appelbaum Associates, New York/ London; malsyteufel, Willich; Anita Brockmann, Köln; one prize: Mila – Jakob Tigges, Berlin; Iglhaut + von Grote, Berlin; one prize: merz sauter zimmermann GmbH, Stuttgart; one prize: raumkontor Innenarchitektur, Düsseldorf; Dr. Karl Müller, Meerbusch Negotiation process with revision of prize-winning competition designs: Advice committee: Dr. Stephan Trüby, Stuttgart/Zürich;

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Public relations Marianne von Weizsäcker christens a new rose

‘Berlin Palace’ In mid-June the area in front of the Humboldt Box was transformed into a sea of roses, as Marianne von Weizsäcker, wife of former German President Dr. Richard Freiherr von Weizsäcker, presided over a special rose-naming ceremony. In the presence of

her husband and numerous invited guests she christened a newly cultivated, beautiful, velvety maroon rose ‘Berlin Palace’!

The rose resembles many roses of the Baroque era, i.e. the period in which the palace took on its ultimate form. It flowers repeatedly

all summer long and has dense, rich green, gleaming foliage.

It was cultivated at the suggestion of Berlin horticulture specialist Prof. Dr. Hartmut Balder by one of Europe’s largest rose-growing firms, BKN Strobel GmbH & Co. KG of Holm near Pinneberg in

Schleswig-Holstein, and will now help to financially support the reconstruction of Berlin Palace.

After the naming ceremony numerous Berliners were already buying their very own Palace Rose.

You too can do this! The roses, very robust plants, are delivered in

plant pots. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the Palace Rose were soon blooming in numerous gardens, reminding everyone of the great cultural project in the heart of Berlin?

Greeting the guest of honour.

Contented attentiveness.

The Federal President with Prof. Dr. Richard Schröder, Chairman of the Friends of Berlin Palace.

Crowds gather to buy the roses.

Arnim Esser, BKN Strobel, the ‘inventor’ of the rose (left).

The christening: Marianne v. Weizsäcker, assisted by Angelika Kölle.

Manfred Rettig and wife. Behind them: Hajo Steinmeier and Hans Jörg Kähler (BKN Strobel)

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Dr. Kissinger’s Speech. Left: Dr. Jürgen Leibfried

Rebuilding Berlin Palace:

Henry Kissinger in Berlin

by Wilhelm von Boddien During a trip to New York in early 2012, Kathleen von Alvensleben and I visited Henry Kissinger, the former American foreign minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner, in his office. Since way back in 1993, he has been one of the most important and highest profile supporters of the rebuilding of Berlin Palace.

At that time the Friends of Berlin Palace had just erected the huge full-scale simulation of the palace on its exact historical footprint – a sight that fascinated millions. This dramatic representation of the historic building was the breakthrough in the palace debate, swinging sentiment in favour of its reconstruction. People were able to see what they had not been able to imagine and grasped the fact that it was only the palace that could restore the architectural harmony of the former centre of the city. Despite numerous other preserved, restored or completely reconstructed buildings, the day the palace was demolished this had ceased to exist. All of the others had been built after the palace and their architectural reference point was not so much each other as the palace itself. They had stood in a won-

Wilhelm von Boddien, Manfred Rettig CEO Stiftung Berlner Schloss-Humboldtforum, Dr. Henry Kissinger

derful architectural dialogue with the palace, which was the site’s gravitational centre.

Henry Kissinger was already helping us back then to take the tension out of the often very politically oriented debate. He originates from Fürth in Franconia. His family, Jewish Germans, had to emigrate from National Socialist Germany to escape persecution. At

that time he was a teenager, much taken by football and is today still a fan of the Fürth football team, which now plays in the top flight of the Bundesliga. In summer 1993 in Berlin a peace conference was held, attended by Henry Kissinger and many other important politicians, aimed at finding a way towards lasting world peace. Another attendee at the conference was the

former Soviet ambassador in Bonn, Valentin Falin.

Both had heard of the discussion about the reconstruction of Berlin Palace and were suddenly standing, without any formal advance notice, in our exhibition, surrounded by dozens of other visitors. Coincidentally I was also there – and when I had recovered from my shock, I welcomed them both and guided them around the exhibition. An animated conversation ensued, in the course of which both Henry Kissinger and Valentin Falin expressed their inability to comprehend the heated arguments about the reconstruction of the palace. They were particularly irritated by many people’s concerns that the reconstruction could be interpreted as a return to a dangerous German nationalism.

Especially as a Jewish emigrant, he couldn’t understand this, said Kissinger. What did the palace, which had stood in Berlin for centuries, have to do with the causes of National Socialism. On the contrary, he said, it was a great testimony to German culture. Falin added that in Moscow they had begun to rebuild two cathedrals in

the city centre very near to the Kremlin that were demolished under Stalin’s regime and were doing so because everyone agreed that this act of barbarism had to be undone. “While you debate, we’ve long since started building!”

Both then spontaneously signed the guest book as supporters of the reconstruction of Berlin Palace.

Via Wolf Jobst Siedler, who published Henry Kissinger’s books at his publishing house, we had further contact with Kissinger – which confirmed my impression that in him we had gained a fascinating supporter to spread the word of our plans to rebuild the palace.

In 2005, we gained a further such supporter: Kathleen von Alvensleben, an American architect living in Berlin, who would go on to develop a Friends of Berlin Palace organisation in the USA. Since then she has repeatedly done successful work on our behalf in the country with great charm and dedication.

She succeeded in setting up the Honorary Board for the Reconstruction of Berlin Palace (see page …), in which task Henry Kissinger helped her as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do and

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Meet the press!

put her in touch with numerous contacts. Via him, for example, we were able to gain the support of the former American president and honorary citizen of Berlin, George H. Bush, who played in a key part in facilitating German reunification.

On our visit this year we asked Henry Kissinger, who is now 89 years old, whether he would be available during on of his numerous visits to Germany and Berlin to be guest of honour at a fundraising party – he immediately said yes. He could do it in September – “Let me know!” Thus in September 2012 at the wonderful old villa of Jürgen

Henry Kissinger talking to Dr. Christoph Franz, CEO Lufthansa

Leibfried an evening function took place in a cheerful atmosphere with many high-profile guests.

The highpoint was Henry Kissinger’s speech. He began in English, saying that he didn’t know if people here in Berlin would be able to understand his German because of his strong Franconian accent.

Laughter all round. Then he carried on in perfect German, telling us that his father had been a proud Franconian and had brought him up that way as well. Franconians, he said, always orient themselves towards the south. Crossing the Main to the north was not some-

thing that you did. In America his father, he said, had always believed that he had it in him to become foreign minister of the USA, but he would never have imagined that he would one day be promoting the reconstruction of Berlin Palace.

He would have regarded that as a sacrilege. But he was doing precisely that and doing so with a passion, because it was so hugely important, he said, to rebuild in the shape of the palace a great testimony to German culture and with in doing so to give Berlin back a piece of its identity. It will not surprise you to learn that the evening

John Kornblum, former US-Ambassador to Germany, Henry Kissinger, Kathleen von Alvensleben, Christa Princess of Prussia

An amazed audience

The Schloss-Simulation 1993

was a great fundraising success and brought us a considerable way further along our path.

This outcome, however, was also made possible and enhanced by the very special fact that the entire evening was gifted to the society. Jürgen and Serap Leibfried donated the evening to us.

They invited guests and were delightful, generous and welcoming hosts. Lufthansa made the trip possible, Mercedes-Benz provided a fabulous car and the Schlosshotel in the Grunewald Forest was our guest of honour’s elegant home from home. We would like to thank them

all for their wonderful generosity, for providing this so willingly and for the ease and simplicity with which any questions were resolved. We thus enjoyed an unforgettable, cheerful evening with great hosts and lots of contented guests!

Henry Kissinger’s visit was a highpoint of our work in support of the rebuilding of Berlin Palace. It is simply moving to have such friends as supporters! Thank you!

All Pictures of the event with many thanks: © Christian Lietzmann, Berlin.

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The Berliner Schloss: A powerful symbol of rebirth and reconciliation for all of Europe

by John Kornblum

W

hy rebuild an imperial palace in the center of Berlin? Why honor the seat of the last Kaiser, Wilhelm II, who bears much responsibility for World War I? Why restore a build-ing on whose balcony the first communist dictatorship in Germany was

proclaimed in 1918? And above all, why rebuild the heart of the city which as Hitler’s capitol, rained death and destruction on millions of Europeans?

It is because when a historic monument is restored, it brings alive the meaning of a nation. It demonstrates the skills, the hopes and the failings of the people. It helps restoring the memory of cul­tural values, especially of those whose heritage has been tinged by recent history.

As the Cold War recedes into history, newly democratic governments in capitols such as Warsaw, Moscow,

and Kiev have understood the importance of rebuild­ ing historic sites.

Their reappear­ance has brought a sense of pride and self-worth which far predates the crimes of the 20th century. The city of Dresden has pursued reconstruction of the glorious Frauenkirche as a symbol of reconciliation. Much of the cost was donated by the citizens from the United Kingdom and the Untied States, whose bombers took part in the 1945 raid which destroyed it.

Reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss will be an equally powerful symbol of rebirth and reconcilia­tion

for all of Europe. It stands in the middle of Berlin, at the cross­roads between East and West. It was badly damaged in Hitler’s war. It could have been rebuilt, but was instead dynamited by Stalinist East German communists who were determined to erase any vestige of Germany’s prewar heritage.

For 45 years a divided Berlin stood witness to the deep gash through the heart of Europe brought by Nazi and Stalinist dictatorship. Berlin symbolized a divided city, a divided nation and a continent torn apart by barbed wire and communist dictatorship.

The United States, more than any other nation, kept the hope of liberation of East Germany and Eastern Europe alive. We defended the freedom of West Berlin. President Reagan ushered in the final collapse of the communist empire.

We Americans have worked for over 50 years on the reunification of Berlin, Germany and Europe. The reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss in the heart of Berlin would be the symbolic crowning of this event.

John Kornblum is the former American ambassador to Germany

The Schloss Bridge today (inset) and 2018

Our representative of the Berliner Schloss for the United States:

K

athleen King von Alvensleben has recently joined Wilhelm von Boddien’s team to help raise funds for the reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss.

Ms. von Alvensleben’s major emphasis will be raising funds in the United States. Recognizing that 25% of all Americans claim to be of German descent, and considering the strong support that came out of the US for the re-construction of the Dresden Frauenkirche, it seems logical to intensify

the fundraising efforts for the Schloss in the US. Preliminary efforts have demonstrated substantial support and interest in America for this prestigious, historical and politically significant project.

Ms. von Alvensleben is American, born and raised in the United States. She first visited the site of the Schloss already in 1977 (which was then in East Berlin), while she was travelling in Germany as a high school exchange student.

During her undergraduate years,

© Marc Selen

Kathleen King von Alvensleben

Kathleen King von Alvensleben

she received a Rotary Scholarship which allowed her to study abroad at the Technical University in Munich in 1983–84.

Once again Ms. von Alvensleben visited Berlin on both sides of the wall. She completed her studies with a degree in Architecture at Arizona State University.

She has spent the last 16 years in Europe, 3 years practicing commercial architecture throughout continental Europe while based in London, and 13 years in Berlin.

After almost 20 years of commercial practice, it was time for a new challenge.

Capitalizing on her experi­ence and achievements of successfully acquiring new work from the international development community and still very interested in the built environment and the historic and political value of significant histor­ic buildings, fundraising for the Berliner Schloss is the perfect project for Ms. von Alvensleben.

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Friends and Circle of Supporters in the USA Cooperation in the USA with the Friends of Dresden, New York

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ew York (dpa) – Just as in the case of the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Americans also want to support the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace. The Förderverein Berliner Schloss (the Union for the Berlin Palace) has agreed to work together to this end with the Friends of Dresden, an organization founded by the US Nobel Prize winner, Günter Blobel. Already $62,000 (around 48,000 Euros.) have come in at a kickoff function held in New York. „We want to create a network of highly respected individuals who can then pass on our idea to other possible donors with a snowball effect”, said co-organizer Wilhelm von Boddien to the dpa in New York on Thursday. „There are many people in America who have a connection with Germany and therefore are prepared to support such a project.” Kathleen von Alvensleben, an American who lives in Berlin, is the person acting with respect to the appeal in the USA. The initial start up function was supported by the auction house Christies and by the German General Consul among others. In addition,

the German Ambassador in Washington has expressed his support. The porcelain collector, Richard Baron Cohen, exhibited his most beautiful pieces from KPM, the Royal Porcelain Manufactory of Berlin, decorated with various motifs showing the historic Hohenzollern Palace, in order to warm up the guests to the idea.

The Friends of Dresden were involved in the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche to the extent of several million dollars. By working together with it, the Union for the Berlin Palace has already obtained a string of fa-

mous potential US supporters. Besides Blobel, there belong to the Board of the Friends of Dresden, as honorary members, the cosmetics heir and art collector Ronald Lauder, ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the banker David Rockefeller, among others.

The partial rebuilding of the Berlin Palace is to begin in three years, according to an announcement by Construction Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee. By 2013, the project, which is estimated to cost 480 million Euros, should be completed.

The Nobel Prize winner, Prof. Dr. Günter Blobel of New York, handed over to Wilhelm v. Boddien, his certificate concerning cooperation.

Ronald S. Lauder supports the Rebuilding of the Berlin Palace he collection of donations for the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace is also underway in the USA. A so-called „Friend-Raising Dinner” that was given by the General Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany in his residence and which was sponsored by the famous auction house Christie’s , reached a very special highpoint when Nobel Prize winner, Prof. Dr. Günter Blobel presented a certificate to the business manager of the Förderverein, Wilhelm von Boddien. It confirmed that the Friends of Dresden would now support the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace as a cultural center to be known as the Humboldt Forum. To this end the Friends of Dresden Foundation had previously unanimously changed their By-Laws.

As a result of this action, we can now also obtain donations in the USA which are recognized there as charitable and entitled to tax deductibility. It is a wonderful breakthrough for our years of effort to win friends in the USA for the project.

Read for yourself what the DPA reported about it: Ronald S. Lauder on February 7, 2007 in the Infocenter for the Reconstruction of the Berlin Palace. To his right is Kathleen von Alvensleben, the US representative of

the Förderverein. Ronald S. Lauder, the well-known American art collector, cosmetics heir and patron, informs himself on February 9, 2007, in the “Infocenter for the Reconstruction of the Berlin Palace” in Berlin about the Humboldt Forum and the steps to be taken in the rebuilding of the Palace.

As a supporter of the Friends of Dresden foundation, New York, Lauder was decisively involved in the successful collection of funds for the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche. The

Chairman of the foundation, the Nobel Prize winner Prof. Dr. Günter Blobel, recently declared in New York that the Friends of Dresden will also now support the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace.

Lauder, who is also the former US Ambassador to Austria, has declared himself in favor of this major Berlin cultural project. He is especially interested in the plans of the Federal Ministry for Construction which were made public a few days ago and in the work of the Förderverein for

Ronald S. Lauder in the Infocenter for the Reconstruction of the Berlin Palace. To his right, Kathleen King von Alvensleben, US representative of the Förderverein

the reconstruction of the Palace facades. He left the Infocenter “very impressed” with the quality and the size of the project. Lauder discussed the idea of further cooperation in the USA with Kathleen von Alvensleben, the representative of the Förderverein in America. On January 31, 2007,

in a greeting delivered upon the occasion of a so-called “friends raising” dinner in the residence of the German General Consul, Dr. Hans-Jürgen Heimsoeth in New York, Lauder called upon his countrymen to make donations for the rebuilding of the Berlin Palace.

Henry Kissinger: Over the centuries, the Berliner Schloss symbolized important chapters in German history n During the 20th century, the Schloss witnessed the collapse of German democracy and the rise of both fascism and communism. Its eventual destruction in 1950 was an act of cultural retribution by the East German communist regime. Nearly 20 years after its reunification, democratic Germany also has the opportunity to return the center of Berlin to its historic unity. The reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss will restore to Berlin and Europe a legacy of European heritage which crosses geographic and ideological frontiers. Rebuilding this great palace will give back to Berlin its cultural heart and a good part of its soul.

It will also return to Europe one of those important edifices which include the Frauenkirche in Dresden, the Royal Palace in Warsaw and the Salvation Cathedral in Moscow whose reconstruction has once again proven that the human spirit can prevail

Photo: World Businesss Forum, Frankfurt

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Comments of VIP’s Here you will find statements of prominent individuals on behalf of the reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss Joachim Gauck, President of the Federal Republik of Germany In my role as patron of the Berlin Palace - Humboldt Forum Foundation I would like in particular to emphasise the forwardlooking aspects of the project. These lie for me in an outward-looking, cosmopolitation configuration of the content of the Humboldt Forum, which underlines the role it will have in the heart of Germany's capital in a productive and constructive dialogue between the cultures of the world.

Dr. Angela Merkel (Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany) On February 3, 1945, during an air attack, the Berlin Palace sustained far reaching damage. Thereby, and with the final demolition of the Palace in the 1950s, the city suffered a wound which to this day has not yet been healed. The continuing discussions concerning the demolition of the Palace of the Republic and the reconstruction of the former Palace make this clear. On this spot controveries have been ignited regarding how to deal with our own history -- controversies which must be understood in the context of the differing evolutions of East and West Germany. For my part, as you know, I am in favor of the rebuilding of the Palace.

General Colin L. Powell, ­Secretary of State (Retired) „The Berliner Schloss is an important part of Berlin and German history and needs to be returned to its rightful place and prominence. As you noted, I served in Germany during the Cold War and remember with joy the collapse of the wall and the unification of Germany.

As Secretary of State, it was my honor and pleisure to waive certain security requirements so that the American Embassy building would be placed in the center of Berlin and not out in the suburbs.“ Ieoh Ming Pei, (Star-Architect, New York) „I wish you good success with the reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss!“

Daniel Coats, (Former American Ambassador to Germany) „The completion of the new American Embassy in Pariser Platz, and the rebuilding of the Berliner Schloss will complete the restoration of Unter den Linden, making it one of the most important and beautiful streets in all of Europe“ Günther Blobel (Nobel Prize Winner) „The rebuilding of the Berliner Schloss will be as essential for the identity of the center of Berlin as was the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche for restoring the identity of Dresden. A rebuilt Schloss will enrich Berlin as much as the rebuilt Frauenkirche already enriches life in Dresden.“ Philip Johnson † (Star-Architect, New York) „I am in favor of the rebuilding of the Berliner Schloss because its reconstruction is so important for the new face of the city which will be so strongly dominated be the modern style. The historic interiors of the Schloss are not determinative; it is the exterior form. Only [by reconstructing these facades] is it possible to restore the spatial effect of the relationship to Schinkel’s Old Museum and his Friedrichswerder Church."

Wolfgang Thierse (Vicepresident of the German Federal Parliament) „It is a painful feeling to think that Berlin should not be allowed, as has been possible for other cities, to recreate historical architecture… How much does a city like Berlin, which has so much, excellent, average and bad modern architecture, and which – in accordance with the famous saying – has destroyed itself again and again, need such a confirmation of the realization of its history… What an ensemble there will be at the east end of Unter den Linden with the partial reconstruction of the Schloss! That tory, surwould be reclaimed his­ rounded by so much architectural modernity. Can you imagine that?

Can it become reality? Let’s not be cowardly!“

Dr. Marion Countess Dönhoff † (Publisher Die Zeit) „I am for the rebuilding of the Berliner Schloss because everything which allows history to become clearly perceptible is indispensable for the self understanding of the living and the coming generations. It would be erroneous to obstruct this idea with the argument that a copy is only something false.

Warsaw, which was totally destroyed in accordance with Hitler’s wishes, is a good example. It was reduced from a city of one million to one of 2,000 inhabitants. I asked the then foreign minister of Poland, Rapacki, in the 1960’s whether it wasn’t better to first build dwellings for the people subsisting in the ruins and cellars instead of newly replacing the old market, however unique it may have been. His almost outraged reply was, „But Madam, you forget what history means for Poland.“

Prof. Dr. Richard Schröder Humboldt University Berlin (Publisher) „I am for the rebuilding of the Berliner Schloss because otherwise the venerable avenue Unter den Linden becomes a joke without a punch line.“ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (fascinated by Paladio’s build­ings in Vicenza) „From lies and imagination the architect creates something third which enchants us.”

Hardy Krüger (Actor) „Your project is impressive, and I will exchange this or another word with my African gods, because it is important to me that you have success with this enterprise which must be considered to be of almost superhuman magnitude.“

Letter from the former President and honorary citizen of Berlin, George Bush Senior regarding our US activities.

4 6 | T h e B e r l i n e r s c h lo s s P o st

Donations

Virtuelle Darstellung des Berliner Schlosses: eldaco, Berlin

Now we are asking for public spiritedness and public involvement!

The Humboldt-Forum is a huge challenge!

by Wilhelm von Boddien

W

e Germans have decided to make Berlin once again our capital city. For this reason we are all mutually responsible for it. Berlin is not only becoming the focus of politics, it is even more so becoming the crystallization point of German culture and achievement.

This challenge cannot be met by the capital city on its own. It is financially bled dry by the consequences of the division. Business emigrated to the West. Berlin lost large segments of the citizenry which previously supported the city through Nazi terror and flight from the oppression of the German Democratic Republic. Unrealistic hopes for a rapid growth in the first years following the fall of the wall led to speculative errors in economic policy and a gigantic indebtedness for the city.

Should we be happy about all this?

Hardly! For we have all become Berliners with our decision to make it the capital. A negative image of the capital also damages the total reputation

of all Germany. Berlin’s cultural facilities are its most important aspect. If one polishes this jewel, so to speak, the numbers of visitors will markedly increase, as one can see in the example of Dresden which is much farther along because of the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche and the Residence Palace with its Green Vaults. They are bringing a lot of money to the city. Berlin can also manage its renewal in this manner so as to have no lasting need for subsidies.

An Opportunity for our Youth The Humboldt-Forum is an opportunity for all of us. It stands for our educational future…for a deepening of the general level of education… because it offers an opportunity to each citizen.

A broad general education of our youth awakens their curiosity and

Donations already  24 Million

 56 Million still missing (October 2010)

Many Raindrops Can Fill Up an Entire Sea Show your public spirit!

Adopt the Berlin Palace with the Humboldt-Forum through your donation!

their imagination. Curiosity and imagination are one of the surest prescriptions against bad marks in their studies. Our youth will learn the cultural relationships in the world. This universal education will make us able to compete in the international markets, because we will have learned to understand the relationship between culture and economics.

Magnificent World Culture For the first time in our history, our capital will not be ruled by a center of political power, but rather by a place of the highest world culture which people will mention in one breath with the radiance of Paris, London and Rome. Neil McGregor, the General Director of the British Museum in London, writes in the FAZ that with this project, Berlin is on a path to creating a “cultural world miracle”.

That is the size of the project towards which we are driving. It will increase

Germany’s reputation, our reputation, in the whole world!

Small and Large Donations You should participate in this great project with a donation for the rebuilding of the Palace as a national cultural center. The state is helping.

Through having confirmed the charitable nature of the project, it has made it possible for you to take a deduction for your donation.

Germany has 82 million inhabitants. By world standards we are a rich country. Nevertheless, many cannot or will not give anything, although we all profit from this undertaking. We have to live with this fact. But yet if only several hundred thousand of us participate in the above-mentioned manner, each to the extent of his own ability, the project will succeed. If those citizens want to take on the responsibility for our capital, our donation collection will be successful.

Get Yourself a Memorial

Donate a Palace Building Stone They are available as 1/5 partial stones at 50 Euros and as complete stone for 250 Euros. Or donate a decorative element for the Palace façade and become involved at a cost of from 1.250 Euros, to over 1 million Euros!

For only 50 Euros. you can symbolically obtain 1/5 of a Palace stone. A whole one costs 250 Euros.

and in the internet. This applies to partial stones as well.

Purchasers of one or more complete building stones receive in addition for purchases over 250 Euros our official Palace donation letter with a sketch of the location of their stones in the façade. However, it may be even more interesting to you to donate one of the costly decorative elements of the Palace facades. In this way you can be identified for all time with a

All stones are awarded only once and only to you. Thus, you receive a unique item! And naturally, your donation will be memorialized in the annals of the Palace if you so desire,

very special, immediately recognizable artistic building component. This is naturally more expensive than a building stone but also more identifiable. From as low as 850 Euros you can symbolically acquire, for example, an artfully crafted baluster for the balustrade of the Palace. Some of the other things you can acquire are shown in the examples of decorative elements pictured below.

www.berliner-schloss.de In the internet under the above address you can send your donation on its way: Click on “Schlossbaustein und Schmuckelement erwerben” [Pa-

lace Stones and Decorative Element donation] at the very beginning of the menu list. The menu then easily leads you to your goal. And after the

receipt of your donation ( also including donations of 1/5 of a stone for 50 Euros.) you can “visit” it in the internet as well.

Your support will be seen there worldwide, along with our thanks for your generous donation!

Here are some examples of decorative elements: Please order our catalogue or have a look at the catalogue on our homepage!

Encircling Balustrade, Balusters A balustrade constitutes the upper border of the Palace facades and the courtyards. The individual balusters are carved in varying forms depending on the particular façade.

The height of a baluster is about 1.34 meters.

1.250.00 

Flower stems under the mezzanine windows

Hanging leaf buds, one stem consists of five, made by individual flowers tied together with ribbon Height: about .2 meters Width: .55 meters

3.120.00 

Seashells, Mezzanine window

In the upper entablature of the housing of the mezzanine windows, there are decorations in bold relief in the form of shells on the large staircases.

Height: about .55 meters Width: .55 meters

5.200.00 

Metope – Portal II Rosette shaped Metopes between the brackets of the main cornice of the two Palace Square Portals.

Very beautiful examples of the stone carver’s art.

They are all variously worked rosettes formed out of acanthus leaves arranged like a flower and placed on a rectangular panel.

7Rosette: about .48 meters by .48 meters

8.160.00 

Bukranion

Corinthian Capital

Gigantic Column Capital

Window housing found on the first upper story of the Lustgarten, Palace Square and Spree River facades. Bukranion with shield and garland. Extremely artistic, difficult sculptural work. The so-called “Bukranion” which is a steer’s skull borrowed from Greek mythology, is found here in the form of a fascinating mask set in a shield with curved sides that lie below it. It is festively decorated with garlands. This motif is already to be found on Michelangelo’s facades for the courtyard of the Palazzo Farnese.

Total depth of the stone: 1.0 meters

Portals I, II, IV, V and the Schlüterhof. These are the capitals on the small rows of columns. The Corinthian capital is carved out of a cup-like form which is surrounded with two rows of acanthus leaves, arranged vertically. Out of the acanthus foliage spiral forms arise, the so-called helixes. A square plate with recessed sides tops the capital. A blossom adorns each side of the plate.

21.970.00 

34.000.00 

Portal II. The “Eagle Capital” of the large columns. These capitals belong to the “composite” order. Below, the capital is surrounded with vertically arranged acanthus leaves. From these leaves arise eagles spreading their wings which partially cover the top plate of the capital.

Schlüter adapted for this purpose the composite capitals pictured in Vignola’s architectural handbook. Overall exterior size: about 2.05 meters x 2.05 meters x 1.80 meters.

Small Brackets in the “Parade” Floor Palace Windows Beneath the windowsill; decorated with scrollshaped and seashell like ornaments.

Height: about .8 meters.

Width: about .2 meters

2.925.00 

Exterior size about .8 meters x .8 meters x .65 meters

159.900.00 

Lion’s Heads

Ram’s Head with Garland

Brackets, Portal II

Located on the encircling cornice in the upper section.

On the sides of the window frame under the architrave, hang rams’ heads in profile. From their mouths grow laurel swags. The horns as well as the vegetation protrude somewhat over the edge of the underlying wall.

Height: about .36 meters.

Large and small brackets in the main cornice of both of the Palace Square Portals, having grooves in their frontal view. This arrangement follows Vignola’s order.

Height: about 1.5 meters. Total width: about .47 meters.

Width of the stone: 1.75 meters

You get an approximately. 7 m long serpentine segment with a lion’s head. A lion’s head sat above each bracket on the large cornice beneath the balustrade.

Height: about .37 meters.

Width: about .7 meters.

2.401.00 

8.810.00 

15.100.00 

You have no access to the internet but want to donate a decorative element?

Order one from us using the coupon on the backside of the Decorative Element Catalogue!

4 8 | T h e B e r l i n e r s c h lo s s P o st

The Berliner Schloss

Dear Reader!

Now you have complete information regarding the reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss.

We hope that we have convinced you! To reach our aim we need strong support, because without money there will be no New Schloss of Berlin.

With this coupon you can help.

Now it depends on you!

Purchase your symbolic Berlin Palace Brick! Donate for the Schloss façade!

With your donation you have become a productive contributor for the reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss. For eternity! All contributors will be documented in a suitable form for ­future generations, so that our children and grandchildren will be informed about this unique endeavour by hundreds of thousands of citizens. For tax purposes, we confirm: On account of our support for the advancement of education and culture, we are recognized in Germany as a particularly noteworthy and non-profit organization.

✂ Yes, I would like to purchase ………. 1/5 Berliner Schloss brick (s) for a total value of (minimum $ 50 per 1/5 partial brick) Yes, I would like to purchase ………. a complete Berliner Schloss brick (s) for a total value of (minimum $ 250 per brick)

I have a special inquiry. Please call me.

Yes, I would like to purchase a(n) ………….(enter name of element) as a decorative element of the façade for a total value of $ ………….(minimum amount $ 910, refer to price index in the internet or in the catalogue.)

Date

Please send me the complete catalogue of the decorative elements of the façade. (currently only available in German language) I agree to be mentioned by name on the internet (name and city only)

✂

I have enclosed some addresses of friends and colleagues whom I believe would also be interested in the Reconstruction of the BerlinerSchloss. You may use me as reference.

(Please send me a confirmation of my donation after the deposit of my donation, for german tax purposes. Tax benefit currently only applicable in Germany.

I am interested in becoming a member of the Foundation Berliner Schloss for the Reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss. Please send me an application form. (Minimum $ 60 / year for an individual membership, $ 500 / year for a corporate membership.)

I would like to become a volunteer in my county for the Reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss. I would like to inform my friends and colleagues about the Reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss. Please send me ………copies of the Berliner Schloss Post.

I would like to display the Schloss Post in my business for distribution to my clients, free of charge. Please send me ……………copies of the Schloss Post free of charge.

Förderverein Berliner Schloss e. V. Postfach 56 02 20 D - 22551 Hamburg

Signature (please sign here)

Donations for the reconstruction of the Palace of Berlin are tax-deductible: European Union: citizens of the countries of the European Union can give donations, tax-deductible in their home-country. As there are differences between the countries, please ask us by mail, how to do it!

If you are US-American Citizen and want a confirmation for your tax-deductible donation: Donations should be made out to “Friends of Dresden Inc.” and should be sent to Friends of Dresden Inc. · c/o Dr. Guenter Blobel 1230 York Avenue · New York, NY 10021, USA The “Friends of Dresden, Inc.” is a nonprofit 501 (3)(c) charitable organization. It will be able to accept tax deductible donations for the reconstruction of the Berlin Schloss. It will issue confirmation of the donation to the donor for tax purposes right after the donation has been received.

My complete address is as follows: Last Name, First Name Address City Telephone

Telefax

E-Mail

Please clip and send in by mail or by fax. 00.49.40.8980.7510

✂

Förderverein Berliner Schloss e. V.: Postfach 56 02 20 · 22551 Hamburg ·  040 - 89 80 75-0 · Fax: 040 - 89 80 75-10 · E-Mail: info@berliner-schloss.de · www.berliner-schloss.de Bank account: Deutsche Bank AG · routing number: 100 700 00 · account number: 077 2277 IBAN: DE41 1007 0000 0077 2277 00 · SWIFT-Code: DEUTDEBB IMPRESSUM

Please pardon us if we have not translated all of the Text without mistakes. If you have found an error, we would be grateful for your correction. Please send it to us: info@berliner-schloss.de.

Herausgeber: Förderverein Berliner Schloss e.V., 22551 Hamburg, PF 56 02 20, verantwortlich für den Inhalt: Wilhelm v. Boddien, Co-Redaktion: Kathleen King von Alvensleben Englischsprachige Ausgabe, 11. Auflage, insgesamt 100.000. Die gesamte Auflage wurde aus Spenden an den Förderverein finanziert.

Wir danken allen, die uns damit geholfen haben. Bildnachweis: Landesbildstelle Berlin, Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Archiv Schloss Charlottenburg, Brandenburgisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Wünsdorf. Farbfoto der Schlosssimulation: Michael Haddenhorst, Berlin. Nachdruck, auch auszugsweise gegen Zusendung eines Belegexemplares gestattet. Für die Fotos gilt das Urheberrecht des Fotografen bzw. des Archivs. Wiedergaben bedürfen unserer ausdrücklichen Genehmigung und unterliegen der Gebührenordnung des jeweiligen Archivs. Alle CAD-Rekonstruktionen: Copyright: eldaco, Rostock,  0381/795 11 07. Layout und Gestaltung: Projektdesign Berlin, Druck: BVZ Berliner Zeitungsdruck GmbH (auf umweltfreundlichem Recyclingpapier gedruckt)