Berlin Contemporary: Architecture and Politics after 1990

Description

For years following German reunification, the city of Berlin was the largest construction site on the European continent, with striking new architecture proliferating throughout the city in the 1990s and early 2000s. Among the most high-profile and also the most contested of the new projects were those designed and built for the national government and its related functions. Berlin Contemporary explores these government buildings and plans, tracing their relationship to the work of modernist architect-luminaries such as Bruno Taut and Louis Kahn while also situating their iconic forms and influential designers within the spectacular world of global contemporary architecture. Close studies of these projects, including Norman Foster’s redesigned Reichstag, Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank’s Chancellery, and the controversial reconstruction of the Berlin Stadtschloss, reveal that—official claims notwithstanding—what is actually on view in the “New Berlin” is a complex and ongoing negotiation of the demands and procedures of statecraft on the one hand, and the techniques of globalized contemporary architectural practice on the other. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Berlin, the Contemporary Capital Notes 1 Bridging and Breaking—Master Planning the Spreebogen History of the Site Imagining the City: Berlin Tomorrow “A New Architectural Allegory” Bridging and Breaking Notes 2 The Reichstag’s New Lightness of Being “A building that could not decide what it wanted” Wrapped Reichstag “The Big Roof” The Faith of Graffiti Notes 3 Monumental Modernism—The Chancellery as Future Ruin The Future Ruin in Berlin and Elsewhere The Competition Contested Legacies The Pleasure of Ruins Classical Controversies “The temple becomes the factory” “Wrapping ruins around buildings” “A warming-up exercise for us all” An Archaic Modernism Monumentality in the Band Notes 4 Palaces of Doubt History of the Site “A House of the People” The Spreeinsel Competition Schloss Simulacra, Schlossplatz Visions Zwischennutzung Notes Conclusion No One Intends To Open an Airport Ghost Airport “The only benefit is safety” Notes Bibliography Index