aNdi's BATs (Berliner Stadtschloss)

[aNdi]

thank you very much

I've done  a little more today and finished the walls, now it's the roof to be done 

[Leodido]

nice progress

[FrankU]

Fantastic work here, it is such a huge project, no wonder it takes some time.

Well, it took the Hohenzollerns about 600 years to build the original, so aNdi is making quite some speed here.

That is also the reason why I ask myself what they really are going to rebuild. There are surely no exact plans of the original, with all the details. So there will be a lot of contemporary interpretation. This means it won't be a rebuild; it will be an interpretation of the remaining memories of the original. And that is something completely different.
In my opinion it would have been wiser to try to live with the loss and go on with new developments in Berlin. Why tear down the Palast der Republik, which was completely in tact and rebuild some destroyed building?
Of course it is without doubt that they shouldn't have destroyed the Hohenzollernpalast in the first place, but that is what has happenend. We cannot deny nor erase this fact by building something that looks like something that has been there.
And something else: why destroy the Palast der Republik. Because it is ugly? In that case I can show you a lot of ugly housing in and around Berlin. Are they going to destroy that also? We cannot and must not erase the DDR history. It is there. We need to live with it.

[aNdi]

3 of the 4 outter walls will look excactly like the original palace, there are enough pictures and videos of the old palace, even in colour, so that we even know what the colour-sheme was and what the palace looked like and yes, there are excact plans of the palace with all details.
Thanks to the Prussian sense of order. 
These plans do just exist for the new parts of the palace though, and these are the only parts that are going to be rebuilt. the inner wing and the parts facing the Spree-river will be replaced by mordern architecture as you can see here:




As for the Palast der Repulik:
It's definitely a question of taste. But beside of that it's a fact that the whole building was full of asbestos and had to be torn down.
I am happy that the historical site of the island got rid of that (in my opinion) ugly building. If you lived in Berlin you would maybe have another opinion about this.
Nobody can tell what the neighbourhood will look like with the palace, so all we can do is waiting until 2015 and make a final descision then. 

But you cannot compare the Palast der Republik to districts as Marzahn or Hellersdorf.
Of course this doesn't seem to be a nice place to live but these buildings are still used as important place to live. In those districts do live more people than in a whole middle-sized city.
Another aspect is that these "housings" don't belong to the senate or federation, they do belong to private people or organisations while the Palast der Republik and the ground it was constructed on belongs to the government. So the government doesn't have any power to demolish these not-so-nice buildings in and outside of Berlin.

But as I already said it's all a matter of taste. You might think it's senseless, I do think that it's an important step Berlin is making into the right direction.

[FrankU]

aNdi,

I must confess that I am not informed about the exact plans as such. Thanks for the information about the project. And sure, in real life there are lots of problems that we do not need to solve in this forum, like ownership of high rise buildings etc...
But I actually did live in Berlin for several years. I have also visited it moreoften. I even have roots there: my grandmother grew up in Neukölln and her sister still lives there.

My point was about this:
The Palast der Republik was torn down. It was said because of the asbestos. We all know that there are lots of buildings that were full of asbestos and that were cleaned instead of torn down.
I think the buildig was torn down because Berlin wanted to erase the DDR regime. And I think that was not a good idea. It is not a question of taste. The PdR was a symbol of a 40 years long reign of USSR and SED suppression. Surely emotions were negative about this. So maybe we should see this tearing down as the Berlin version of the tumbling down of Saddam Husseins statue in Baghdad....
On the other hand I always thought it would be nice to keep the PdR and re-use it as a parliament for the Bundesland Berlin or something. Or a congress center. Something very democratic would be best. Then Berlin would have a remembrance on the DDR, but with a good contemporary function.

And now the Schloss: I think it is not good to rebuild something that has been removed. It is false history. No doubt that the Hohenzollernpalast was an interesting building and I condemned the destroyers the day I heard about it, but that was history already then. I think it is wiser to go on. Keep the existing mouments in shape, because they are essential for our historic awareness, and build new buildings with contemporary meterials and for contemporary functions.

Did you note that I did not say anything about the beauty of the PdR? It is always partly a question of taste, but there is much more than taste to it.

And now finally to your project:
I think it is huge. I think SC4 is the ideal place to contruct or reconstruct anything anyone wants. And it is a huge task that you laid upon yourself. And I cannot really measure how much you still have to do. But I think you are brave and I hope you will be able to finish the project before 2015!
And I would definitely place your Schloss on a very important location in my cities. Probably facing the Rotes Rathaus, the Fernsehturm, the Wilhelminische Dom and the Palast der Republik which, as you surely know, still exists in SC4. The only thing I will miss then is the Altes Museum by Schinkel... That would be my request for BATters who are looking for a new project.

[Fabian93]

Why should we "erase the DDR regime"? We Germans had an even worse regime... the regime of the so called 3rd Reich from 1933 - 1945.
The German government uses a few old 3rd Reich buildings as ministries.

For example:
The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is located in the former Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda...
The Federal Ministry of Finance is located in the former Reich Air Ministry building...
and so on

And then again, a lot of old buildings have been rebuilt (recently) and will be rebuild. Like the Kommandantur, which was rebuilt around 2000(?) or other great pre-war buildings.
It's great to see these old buildings appearing again.
And the Schloss matches better with the surroundings (Lustgarten, Altes Museum etc.)

Sorry for that little intervention,
Fabian

[Badsim]

Hi aNdi ,

Nothing useful to add to the controversy .... I simply think that's a beautiful & impressive project , as in real life than in your hands .



Cédric.

[peterycristi]

As i told you before its a really great project you are doing here! Go on batting, i can't wait until its finished! 

about the controvery:

why there always needs to be a discussion about berlin architecture? Every other city had the chance to be fine again after the war. Just Berlin was destroyed, captured and devided for over fourty years and never had the chance to find it's self again. Now Berlin is free after a long period. Why people can't let that city be fine again? Why everywhere in the city we should keep ugly rest of the 20th century history? Anyway it's impossible to erase the burned in signs of DDR and third Reich, so why the city can't be beautifull again at least at it's main places? I really think this poor city, that even doesn't know it's own identity yet, was injured and raped enough. Just stop discussing and let it just be fine again.

saludos

Peter

[FrankU]

Ohhh, I think I hit some people on the head with my comments. 

Please let me try to be clear.

1. Berlin is one of the cities I love most on this earth.

2. The history of the city, the injuries it has gotten, the division and the reunion, the destruction of beauty, but also of ugliness, and the construction of beauty and ugliness. They are all part of the history, the character and the unique quality of this city.

3. Every civilization, every country and every city, even every person, needs to consider and reconsider its history and needs to think about how to act on it and how to go on. German history is a very heavy load. I think the German people has taken the right road.

4. And now on buildings. I think that rebuilding of something that has been destroyed is not the right thing to do. In the first place because the reconstruction will never be exact. It is, in best case, a visual replica. Although I must say that there are some really stunning reconstructions (partly done under the DDR regime).
But I think it is false history. In my opinion it is good to keep a building alive and working as long as it has value and is still there (even if it is .ncomplete). But when it is not there anymore, you can never get it back. I think it is then wiser to build something that is new, with maybe the use of parts of the old. It might somehow be an interpretation of the old.

5. You can never really repair something that has been injured in the way Berlin has been injured. If only for the question: What is the "original state" that we want to reconstruct? A building that has been designed at one  moment and is built the way it was designed: that is possible, But something that has been fooled around with, that has been altered, extended, added to, changed, repainted etc, what is the original state of it? What should we rebuild? And a city: you relly don't want Berlin to be rebuilt like it was in, say 1920. Who would want to live in the Hinterhöfe? Do your really want the pollution back Berlin had in these days?

OK, this is getting really off topic.

As said before: aNdi: a great task, and you are doing well! I will definitely put your Schloss on a beautiful place.

[nelsonunes]

hi people

any new about andi's Berliner Stadtschloss??

i realy love that baroque palace, well i love berlin history anyway 

there are news about that bat??

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