Giving up the Facade
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| 2018 |
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| 1920 |
When reading about President Trump’s proposed executive order calling for traditional designs for new Federal buildings, I came across the Humboldt Forum of the Berlin Palace. This image of the scaffolded facades was taken in 2018. 2018! Why...? Deemed ‘one of Europe’s most ambitious current cultural projects’, the unfinished museum is facing multiple protests and controversies.
A brief timeline: the Berlin Palace construction lasted centuries, completed at its height in the mid-1800s, heavily damaged by Allied bombing in WWII, completely demolished in 1950, a new Palace of the Republic (of postwar Germany) was erected on-site in the 1970s but was demolished in 2008. Afterward, the German government allocated over 600 million euros to reconstruct the old palace, which is slated to finish construction this year.
They are reconstructing the facades in the original Baroque style that will contain remnant sculptures from the original, while the interior will be fit-out in a modern manner. In terms of controversy, many people believe that reconstructing the old Palace will memorialize the dark history of the German Colonization era.
Wilhelm von Boddien, a German businessman who raised funds for the past decade to finance the project said:
“Why don’t we allow Berlin to be beautiful again? We are repairing a city. And the city needs repair because it lost its heart.”
I am putting the German architectural community on the spot here for allowing this to happen. I think it is ridiculous that a government project with a budget of 600 million euros is simply reconstructing a Baroque building. I think there was an incredible opportunity here for a contemporary architectural intervention. This project hits a nerve because it seems to belittle our education. Architects are the experts equipped to address these very cultural, historical, and economic spatial complexities. I feel that our profession has been robbed of the opportunity to contribute to architectural discourse.
I’ve never visited Berlin, so for the people who have a more intimate relationship with Berlin, what do you think?
Very interesting post. I am in the same boat as you when you say that this the type of architectural questions are precisely the ones we are trained to respond and that it is demoralizing to be overlooked.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I also understand some people's skepticism towards contemporary architecture. I have not been to Berlin, but I have been to Rotterdam, another city that was destroyed by the war and that now houses many famous examples of contemporary architecture. When I went with the rest of the class, I heard people said that the city had left no impression on them and that it felt like Dallas.
Going back to Berlin as one of Europe's most important capitals, I understand their fear to gain nothing from contemporary architecture in terms of character and being left as a generic modern city.
Again, I do think it is a missed opportunity, but maybe they are just playing safe by reconstructing what once was.
Also haven't been to Berlin but I can comment on Rotterdam. While there, I remember thinking that at what point does contemporary architecture, or unique starchitect buildings, become too many for a city and therefore begin to loose status and appeal? There's something to be said about having historic buildings that can juxtapose contemporary architecture. I think it makes both typologies more interesting and respectable. I'd love to hear what people think about Berlin and if it feels like a fully contemporary city, historic city, or a maybe a city struggling to maintain its history amidst new development...
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting part of the conversation on facades that I haven't considered. I think this conversation also falls into the realm of critical regionalism in that when the original palace was built, Baroque was the style of the time. However culture has moved on and while it is nostalgic to build back the Palace as it was before, it doesn't represent the Germany of today. As with critical regionalism there could be opportunity for Baroque to be subverted and reimagined in today's context. Sadly it's a missed opportunity.
ReplyDeleteI find the post war rebuilding effort fascinating. Warsaw, Poland was systematically leveled following the Warsaw Uprising. It wasn't just bombed by planes and artillery like many cities throughout Europe, the Nazis had engineers and sappers painstakingly demolish the city block by block in an act of revenge following the resistance the city had mounted against their occupation. When the war was over Warsaw went through a tremendous effort to rebuild the city as it was before the war. Unlike many other European cities that used the destruction as an opportunity to modernize, Warsaw was compelled by a cultural obligation that restoring things to their original state as close and as true as possible was a victory over the destruction that occurred.
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