The Palace of the Republic versus the Stadtschloss: The Dilemmas of Planning in the Heart of Berlin
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On 4 July 2002, the German Bundestag had to decide on the future
of one of the capital city’s principal historical sites: the square known
as the Schlossplatz, where the Hohenzollern Palace once stood but
that since 1976 had been the site of the German Democratic Republic’s
flagship Palace of the Republic. It was not the first time that
German politicians had been called upon to decide issues relating to
art and architecture. On previous occasions votes had been taken on
the wrapping of the Reichstag by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Sir
Norman Foster’s dome, Hans Haacke’s artistic installation “Der
Bevölkerung” inside the Reichstag, and Peter Eisenman’s design for
Berlin’s Holocaust memorial.1 Their decision to rebuild the historical
palace, however, differed in that the politicians did not vote on
an architectural design, “in eigener Sache.”2 That is, it was not a
building or monument belonging to the governmental or political
sphere of the capital city but rather a site likely to house cultural
institutions. Parliamentarians, thus, were called upon to settle a
twelve-year-old planning and architectural controversy after all other
means, including architectural competitions, had failed.