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A City Planner Describes the New Government Quarter in Berlin (2001)

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From the Central District to Spreebogen

The vote for the Reichstag had far-reaching consequences for the location decisions that had to be made starting in 1992, since it made the Spreebogen and Dorotheenstadt the preferred sites for the Bundestag and the Federal Chancellery. In March 1992, the International Urban Planning Competition for the Spreebogen was announced and all the corresponding parameters were laid out – this was done in close connection with the architectural competition to convert the Reichstag into the House of the German Bundestag.* Thus, in terms of urban planning, this space on the northern edge of the Tiergarten was designated as a meaningful entry point into Berlin’s historical center. [ . . . ]


The Ribbon of the Federation

In February 1993, Berlin architects Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank won the Spreebogen competition; the two had already been involved in the planning process for “Berlin Mitte.” Their design persuaded the jury with its extremely bold plan to organize the buildings along a single line that crossed the Spree at two points and juxtaposed the executive and legislative branches, that is, two very heterogeneous elements, in a single configuration.** The great positive response to this design – also from abroad – can be explained in large part by its sensitivity to the city’s history. With the “Ribbon of the Federation,” Schultes and Frank countered the great-power ambitions of the National Socialists, who had planned a massive north-south axis through the center of Berlin that would have culminated in a “Hall of the People” at this same very spot. A second reason for the acceptance of this design was surely the claim that this formation reconnected the Eastern and Western parts of the recently reunited city – an idealistic yet catchy metaphor.

Finally, in 1995, the two architects also managed to win the architectural competition for the Chancellery in the western segment of the ribbon – a decision that was by no means a foregone conclusion, and one that then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl made only after reflecting on it for six months. The competition to rebuild the Reichstag was won by the British architect Sir Norman Foster – admittedly, after a lengthy revision phase, during whose course Foster radically altered his original design in response to wishes vigorously expressed by the client and eventually realized the idea of the dome. The competition for the eastern segment of the ribbon, the area in which the parliamentary building was to be constructed, was won by the Munich architect Stephan Braunfels, who, through the decision of the client, also became the architect for the portion of the ribbon that continues between the Spree and Luisenstraße.



* See Bundesministerium für Raumordnung, Bauwesen und Städtebau mit Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umweltschutz, Internationaler städtebaulicher Wettbewerb Spreebogen [Federal Ministry for Regional Planning, Building, and City Planning, with the Senate Administration for Urban Development and Environmental Protection, International Urban Planning Competition for the Spreebogen] (Berlin-Bonn, 1993).
** Compare Federal Ministry for Regional Planning (above)

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