Berlin полностью

The issue of the Reichstag’s complicated historical associations could be dealt with in part through a new set of symbols, a reorientation of the building’s imagery. It so happened that a dramatic means of underscoring such a reorientation lay ready to hand. Since the early 1970s the Bulgarian-born artist Christo, whose favorite form of creative expression was wrapping up very big things in all manner of material, had been lobbying to “wrap” the Reichstag. He had been repeatedly rebuffed, most recently by Helmut Kohl, who feared that Christo secretly wanted to wrap him. Many politicians opposed the idea as an insult to the building’s dignity. Wolfgang Schäuble protested that no other country would allow a structure of comparable historical importance to become the centerpiece of a conceptual art experiment. Would the British so disgrace Westminster, the Americans Capitol Hill, or the French the Palais Bourbon? Nevertheless, after the Wall came down Christo’s plan found support among politicians who believed that through such a gesture the once and future parliament building could, so to speak, undergo a ritual rebirth: it could be wrapped as the Reichstag and unwrapped as the Bundestag. The CDU politician Heiner Geissler argued that “through Christo we get the chance to show the world Germany’s tolerant and open-minded character.” Christo himself suggested that the project would stimulate viewers to reflect on “what this building means to Europe, Germany, and many people around the world.” With the backing of Mayor Diepgen and Bundestag president Rita Süssmuth, the plan was approved by a vote in the Bundestag on February 25, 1994.

As it turned out, the Reichstag-wrap was a huge public-relations coup for Berlin. Thousands of people came to view the old Prussian pile enveloped, like a rich bride, in a million square feet of silver-covered fabric. The cover-up made Berliners “see” the building again, just as the mock-up of the Hohenzollern Palace had made them revisualize that historic structure on its original site. When the wrapping came off in July 1995, the Reichstag was ready for its renovation.

But exactly what kind of renovation? A design competition in 1992/93 yielded very different answers to this question. Unable to select a clear winner, the jury awarded three first prizes: to the Dutchman Pi de Bruijn, the Spaniard Santiago Calatrava, and the Englishman Sir Norman Foster. Eventually, after further scrutiny and many heated discussions, Foster was given the contract to redesign Germany’s most important building. The fact that he and the other finalists were all foreigners was quite telling. Clearly, the parliamentary officials had a fear of seeming too assertive, too “German” in the traditional sense. As the chairman of the Bundestag Building Committee admitted: “There was perhaps some anxiety that if we did it in a purely German manner we would have taken a whack.”

The Reichstag “wrapped” by Christo, 1995

Foster, who had made his name by designing skyscrapers in Hong Kong and Frankfurt, won the Reichstag contract because his design seemed most likely to project the openness and transparency that were the cherished hallmarks of the modern German democracy. By matching the parliamentary building’s new look with the principles and confident aspirations of its new tenants, Foster’s Reichstag would show the world that the German government’s return to Berlin meant neither an abandonment of the ideals of Bonn nor a relapse to the weaknesses of the pre-Bonn parliamentary order.