Posters Artwork Documents

Stadtschloss, Berlin, 1945.

Unknown private author.

Someone mentioned "burning" in relation to the "maypole" post ... The City Palace was seriously damaged by Allied bombing in the latter part of the war. In fact, it was reduced, like many other of the more "solid" buildings of Berlin, to a partially-upright shell of its former self. Things did not improve much with the assumption of responsibility for the building by the administration of East Berlin (German Democratic Republic). The Communist regime, which regarded the palace as a symbol of Prussian imperialism, reduced the remains to rubble with explosives, converting the site (surprise, surprise) to a parade ground, upon which they subsequently constructed a new State Council building, and a "Palace of the Republic". The latter turned out to have been heavily contaminated with asbestos, which, after 2003, took until 2003 to strip out. Meanwhile, a debate on the future of the site (of epic length, typical of the unified Germany on such issues) as to the future of the site finally came to a conclusion with a decision (in 2007) to demolish the East German buildings and reconstruct three facades of the old palace using, to the greatest possible extent, architectural elements surviving from the demolition in various quarries and dumps. Interiors will, however, be "modern" or "postmodern". The budget for this project, which is still at a very early operational stage, is estimated at some 600 million Euro. I am sure that the plan will be seen through. But as to the budget, precedents for such projects suggest that a large overrun can be expected ... Best regards, JR.