Publications.

Berlin opened its new castle, it is 2021.

While there may be a good solid reason to do so, it may also be safe to assume it was revenge combined with nostalgia that made Berlin spend around 700 million euros for a fake castle. Revenge, because East Germany destroyed Berlin’s original beauty – nostalgia, because Germany ended up with a country stripped bare of its immense heritage after some wrong moves in history.

After merging a copied castle facade with a standard structure, able to serve as a `Media Markt´ as well, Germany opens its brand-new castle in the heart of Berlin. Das Schloss was planned to be baroque but efficient.

Its `reconstructed´ facade on three sides – lacking the complicated small towers – is not a total facade reconstruction, but a copy and paste facade of a random selection of historic elements.
A Disney World in terms of building typology, a tourist magnet for people spending a relatively short time to read or watch the complexity of the world, all based on the work of Prussian Alexander von Humboldt.

Now, Berlin has opened its kingdom of compromise.

The House.

Niemand hat die Absicht eine Mauer zu errichten / June 15th, 1961 -Nobody has the intention to build a wall´, Before starting to build the wall on August 13th, 1961.

Nobody had the intention to build a fake castle.

It was Walter Ulbricht, GDR politician from 1950 till 1971, who was responsible for the demolition of the original castle´(the Hohenzollern Headquarters), in 1950. To be later replaced during the following decades with the avantgardistic Palast der Republik´. Or `Erichs Lampenladen´ and team which opened in 1976, after 32 months of construction and designed by Heinz Graffunder and team. The other side of the wall was not amused by this new performance building, a forefront trend machine, a politicalcized Cedric Price theatre.

Officially it has been the asbestos – not Walter Ulbrich and the GDR´s political idea – which made it unavoidable for the Deutschen Bundestag, to blow up that piece of derailed history. However, (while it was possible to remove the asbestos from German universities). Doubt, (Zweifel), of the real official reason of destruction was obvious. The later demolition of this the Palast der Republik could be read as a collateral benefit, satisfying the German´s desire for revenge against the symbol of the GDR. Parts of the palace – steel were reborn in VW´s GOLF IV engines;, another part was used for Dubai´s highest building, the tallest in of the world. In this sense `Erichs´s Lampenladen´ is still glowing bright.

It is interesting, how communism reappears in capitalism.

It can be read as a physical health benefit, by removing the full entire building instead of exclusively just the fire protective asbestos. A satisfying mental health benefit for the West German soul, by (re)building a free-of-asbestos Prussian-anti modern – castle.

A castle of revenge.

The German government decided to replace that the replacement of the Hohenzollern Schloss, which was again a replacement of the first building on this site,; the residence for Kurfürst Friedrich II in 1443. That one has been constructed on top of the dividing wall between the former cities of Berlin and Cölln –- a coincidence with Axel -Springer HQs, which design emerged from the position of the GDR wall. Is Axel Springer the real contemporary castle, since media is ruling the world?

While castles in general were agglomerations of different styles and cultures, melted into one single, and fuzzy antique cake, the Humboldt Forum is their compromise master-piece. Fusion architecture of different centuries built in one -single decade. Here, the incoherent gap between facade and content found its kingdom. Baroque fames blowing their trumpets out of a Reinhardtsdorfer sandstone facade to advertise a gypsum wall-trapped content without a view. One interesting detail of from many random facts: it was East German stonecutters, which built the new castle. There were no such skills found in former western parts of the country, no craftsman, to do such a job.

In this sense it was a destruction of an East German icon, replaced by an outdated castle, built by stonecutter’s hands trained in by East German stonecutter firms, – as the ones of Berthold Just (gypsum) of and Andreas Artur Hoferick (stone), and their respective teams.

While the end-result produces huge windows covering all facades of the reconstruction end-result, they magically disappear from the usable inside space. Partly very nice, the opening exhibitions are trapped in black boxes. But – at least the toilets are receiving some enough sunlight and a view into the surrounding neighbourhood. Is easy maintenance the contemporary cultural common- ground? Is back of house (BOH) the new facade?

Hopefully future curators will be able, to turn this massive volume of emptiness into a temple of understanding our planet. Hopefully this German Castle will not turn out as a piece of Kafka´s work.