The Berlin City Palace or Berlin Palace (Berliner Stadtschloss aka Berliner Schloss in German) is (partly) getting reconstructed.
It's scheduled to be finished and opened as the world cultural museum "Humboldt Forum" in late 2019. Interiors can and will be reconstructed later on, year by year.
The reconstructed parts are completely covered by private donations, including mine and yours!
Go here to donate and find more information: http://berliner-schloss.de/en/donations/
History:
The Stadtschloss site marked the historical core of the German capital, being the root for the city's development.
It had a Gothic and Renaissance appearance in the 17th century (check here), when Prussian architect Andreas Schlüter's
Baroque design was carried out from 1702 on, continued and adjusted by various other architects,
most prominently Knobelsdorff's interiors and exterior works by former Schinkel-student Stüler, who created the dome.
After considerable damage in World War 2, it still could have been rebuilt - but the socialist GDR government of East Berlin
decided to blow it up in 1950. For ideological reasons, because they wanted to get rid of "militarist Prussia" and "imperialist Germany".
This act of cultural and historical crime was followed by a huge parade ground for the GDR authorities -
and in 1976, the Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik)
was built on its site. In 2008, the demolition of this historical hoax was finally finished.
You can comprehend the whole process until today at this thread.
Since reunification in 1990, there were various initiatives coming up for the reconstruction of the Berlin Schloss.
In 2002, the German parliament (Bundestag) made the decision to partly rebuild the Palace complex
as the new Humboldt-Forum.
This concept is intended as a combination of a museum and a venue for events. The museum will show non-European
exhibits & art, as a counterpart to the Museum Island, which represents European history.
So altogether, this part of Berlin will establish a prominent place of world culture.
(Note: sometimes "Schloss" is misleadingly translated to "Castle", while that would be a fortress-like
"Burg" in German language. A palatial royal home is usually called "Schloss".)
Visualisations/Renderings/Models of the Berlin Palace / Humboldt-Forum (as of March 2013):
The HumboldtBox currently informs visitors about the Stadtschloss reconstruction and the future Humboldt-Forum - and it provides nice views and coffee.
Aerial view of the Berlin Palace and the former dense urban old town core of the city (called Alt-Berlin and Cölln), which today mostly is a huge lawn:
The east facade of the Berlin Palace towards the river Spree (with Marx-Engels-Forum and the TV tower sitting behind today). In the current concept, the reconstruction of this multi-era facade is not scheduled.
Instead, there will be a "modern" facade made by architect Francesco Stella which I'll show later.
Additional aerial views of the Palace, Cathedral and the dense urban old town core before WW2: Photochrom view from 1920
http://www.berliner-historische-mitte.de/ / imglink (Really interesting organisation that intends to rebuild Berlin old town parts - similar to Dresden Neumarkt society. Luckily re-activated since some time, please feel free to support them! )
Was there any particular reason why this Palace received considerable damage from Allied bombing during WW2? BTW, they should also rebuild the stunning Wilhelm Memorial.
It didn't receive any more damage than the rest of Berlin.
You can see the damage to the east façade compared to the Marienviertel on the right of these comparison pictures originally posted on the Architectura Pro Homine:
Before the War:
After:
The main reason for the subsequent demolition by the communist East Germany (Pictures) was it's status as a symbol for an unwanted (and failed) system (the monarchy) right in the centre of it's new and modern (communist) capital.
Ironically the demolition of the palace of the republic (picture in a better state, and another one from the east) on this very spot had pretty much the exact same reasons. It was a symbol of the communist past of East Germany in the centre of the new All-German capital.
(The official reason was it's asbestos contamination, but almost every building from the 70ies has this problem. One of the more prominent examples is the ICC-Building, opened 1979 in the former west of Berlin, and nobody is going to demolish that one.)
I can't wait to see the Schloss rebuilt. Of course it's sad that they are not rebuilding the Palace in a 100% accurate way (that eastern facade will surely look awful), but at least from Unter den Linden people will get impressed with the beauty of the Stadtschloss. Also, the PdR didn't fit the location, in the middle of Berlin historic centre, as the City Palace did.
Are there any plans to reconstruct the Monbijou Palace? It would be too a great addition to Berlin cityscape, especially in the architectural environment around Museum Island.
Was there any particular reason why this Palace received considerable damage from Allied bombing during WW2? BTW, they should also rebuild the stunning Wilhelm Memorial.
Churchill's bombing war was based on the strategy to destroy EVERYTHING regardless of its historic and cultural value or lack of military importance. With this directive, the bombers carpeted the entire nation with incendiary bombs, missing very little in the top 100 population centers. The Stadt Schloss was simply part of the victim list.
Interestingly, George VI of Great Britain nearly begged the Royal Air Force to spare the royal palace in Hannover due to its historic link to the British royal family, but even that did not deter the bombs from destroying that grest building as well.
Much of what was left after WWII could have been rebuilt, but the effort to do so would have cost much more money, time, and resources than were available in the post WWII 10-20 years. And, the serious need for fast infrastructure was a much higher priority than history.
Churchill's bombing war was based on the strategy to destroy EVERYTHING regardless of its historic and cultural value or lack of military importance. With this directive, the bombers carpeted the entire nation with incendiary bombs, missing very little in the top 100 population centers. The Stadt Schloss was simply part of the victim list.
Interestingly, George VI of Great Britain nearly begged the Royal Air Force to spare the royal palace in Hannover due to its historic link to the British royal family, but even that did not deter the bombs from destroying that grest building as well.
Much of what was left after WWII could have been rebuilt, but the effort to do so would have cost much more money, time, and resources than were available in the post WWII 10-20 years. And, the serious need for fast infrastructure was a much higher priority than history.
Well, some people say Churchill was a war criminal.....Although, that's for one part true and one part false. Churchill warned with bombings on German cities that they repeat the bombings on other German cities if the Nazi's attacked England, and the bombings were also an revenge of what the Nazi's did with their Blitzes on England.
Dresden was by far a war crime. Killing nearly 35,000 people and destroying the whole innercity. The good news about Dresden is, that Germany is reconstructing the Innenstadt again :banana:
Never forget, everything is possible, even the most impossible is possible
I'm surprised why so much people prefer this reconstruction instead of building something new there. The palace is a symbol for king and kaiser. That's an anachronism and its going to be some kind of museum for museum island anyway, so why that illusion
of something old there?
And: this thing will cost over 600 mio. €. (I guess no one really believes in the 590 mio. it is said to cost. Such buildings always get more expensive ) I guess that amount of money could have been invested better..
God, Germanys financial situation can't be that bad if we can afford that.. :dunno:
The baroque facade will cost just around 80 mln EUR, which is peanuts for the value of the cityscape that gets restored there and compared with useless crap like extraordinary pensions for our "civil servants". Besides the sum for the reconstructioned parts being donated by people like you and me, or enterprises. So a modern museum at this location would cost you as a tax payer just the same. And now show me only ONE modern design for this location that doesn't fail. There was an extensive competition (which wasn't in need imho, you can't come up with something better than the reconstruction there). But nothing REMOTELY qualitative for this central location next to the Dom and on museum island turned out of it. So the logical conclusion is: There's no other way to do it than to reconstruct.
Just imagine the buildings around Bebelplatz being all modern, they are reconstructions.
Or Gendarmenmarkt. Or Prinzipalmarkt in Münster. Or many parts of Rothenburg. The Würzburg Residenz. Montecassino. Warsaw old town. Gosh, even the famous Venice Campanile is a reconstruction...
People, get finally used to it! Reconstructions are a natural part of construction culture.
They are way older than all the modernist crap, which is in itself completely old fashioned, since it's a style that barely changed for 80 years now.
There's nothing more modern than creating urbanity through partioned buildings that are naturally beauty in proportion, material and detail. They don't always have to be reconstructions, but many of them were great treasuries of art and mancraft and it's a pleasure to have them. Everyone who lives in any original European old town (like me atm) will agree to that.
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Dresden was by far a war crime. Killing nearly 35,000 people and destroying the whole innercity. The good news about Dresden is, that Germany is reconstructing the Innenstadt again :banana:
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