Palast der Republik

As I've mentioned before, I was recently in Berlin, and I saw the sad current state of affairs around the former Marx-Engels-Platz, where the skeleton of the 'Palace of the People' becomes more sparse on an hourly basis as construction crews 'dismantle' the building, making sure that all of the materials are 'recycled.'

When I first saw the Palast, it was during a gloomy bus tour of the city in Februrary 2005. I knew absolutely nothing about the building but thought: "Gah, that is an absolute eyesore, they should tear that thing down immediately." At that point, asbestos that had been discovered shortly after reunification rendered the building 'useless' in the eyes of the West German government, and even though West German buildings had been successfully ridded of the abhorrent insulation, the stalwart of German Democratic Republic was just not worthy of salvation--perhaps the symbolism was too grand. Or maybe the Western mindset will never fully recover from the brainwashing of Cold War era politics.

This is one of my favorite 'units' because I find the question of responsibility and history bundled into this one building endlessly complex. The Palast, in its 'heyday' was a destination for East Germans (I think this idea is conveyed quite concisely with more than a dash of humor in the selections from 'Von Erichs Lampenladen'). A multi-purpose building with gourmet restaurants, an extensive art collection, a bowling alley, disco, theatre, AND a really large parliamentry auditorium...all organized with typically inefficient and arbitrary East German policies. How could you not love it? The images in the gallery of the inside of the Palast are scanned from a 1973 East German propaganda book celebrating the building. Even though my opinions and upbringing (and even forays into German culture) are clearly Western, to me, the Palast in its original, golden state epitomizes the romance of the DDR (GDR), and I am completely starry-eyed.

For this reason, seeing the deconstruction site almost made me cry. It was yet another gloomy winter day in Berlin, and I was accompanied only by a couple of cameras (the 'dismantling' clip -once the format is converted it may actually work- was taken with my little digital camera and provides a quick 360 of the area). They've exposed the underground ruins of the old royal palace and straight through the skeleton of the Palast, the Fersehturm (TV tower) remains one of the only shining beacons of Socialist Germany along the cityscape. In the past 18 years, the GDR's stamp on the urban landscape has been slowly, but steadily erased. The conformity of (Karl Friedrich) Schinkel's Unter den Linden neo-classical layout is being restored, and although it truly is beautiful...it all seems a little ersatz.

They've argued for years about what to do with the Palast--it took over ten to finally begin 'dismantling' (sorry for the continued use of quotation marks - I just find the state-imposed lexicon completely ridiculous) the building, so it might take another 20 to agree on what to put there. There were some rich businessmen who were pushing for a complete reconstruction of the Hohenzollern Palace that was destroyed in the bombings of WWII and subsequently razed by the Socialists in the 50s, but I believe the support for that plan is waning, and plans for a park or a revisionist sort of building are surfacing. The coast is wide-open, but I'm thinking I'd like to see some sort New German architecture with glass and steel, incorporating ideas and inspirations from both buildings. It's the sort of architecture one sees all over the city, but it's what Berlin has become, and I have truly embraced it.