V. Focal point Spreeinsel [Spree Island]
The area between Schlossplatz [Palace Square] and Molkenmarkt underwent the most profound alterations in the course of the six-year planning phase. Until 1994, the federal government was still assuming that it would house at least three ministries there. The 1993 urban planning competition for the area of the Spreeinsel, that is, the area around Schlossplatz, envisaged that the Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, and the Federal Conference Center would be located there.* To house this volume of construction, the contest mandated the destruction of the Palast der Republik [Palace of the Republic], which occupies the eastern part of the palace site, the State Council building, and the GDR Foreign Office. In other words: all GDR government structures in this area were to come down in one fell swoop. But that wasn’t all: according to the visions of the Federal Ministry for Building, then led by FDP politician Irmgrad Schwaetzer, the former state bank building in the neighboring Friedrichswerder district and the former Reich Aviation Ministry were to be torn down as well.
These plans revealed deep differences of opinion between the federal government and Berlin and also met with considerable opposition from members of the architectural profession.** In the Spree Island Competition of May 1994, a decision was made in favor of Bernd Niebuhr’s design for a “Stadthaus” [“Town House”] in the dimensions of the former City Palace, but the decision offered no solution on account of a biased conflict over the building’s use; rather, it only led to new difficulties.*** While the question of an appropriate usage program for this area was pushed aside unsolved, those in favor of rebuilding the palace scored a publicity success in the summer of 1993 by projecting a simulation of its façade, and the GDR Foreign Office disappeared.
VI. The Altbau [pre-1948 buildings] Concept of Klaus Töpfer
The change came at the end of 1994, when Klaus Töpfer became federal minister of building and firmly rejected all of the government’s plans to tear down buildings and build new ones. Presented in 1995, his plan for the area completed the swing toward an approach based on the utilization of existing buildings; this approach included buildings from all time periods, including the GDR era. This concept not only had the decisive argument of lower costs on its side; it also offered a way out of ever more burdensome demands that the move to Berlin had to be perfect – demands that offered a hiding place for unrelenting opponents of the move in the administration. Additionally, this freed up unimaginable resources for urban development projects involving existing Altbauten in the center of the city and allowed a differentiated approach to engaging with existing buildings from the point of view of historic preservation.
This had two consequences for the area between Schlossplatz and Molkenmarkt. The demolition plans for the State Council building and the former Reichsbank were given up for good; in the long-term, however, this area quickly lost significance as a site for federal government offices. Temporarily housing the Chancellery in the State Council building until April of this year does nothing to alter this fact. In the future, the federal government will be represented in this area only by the Foreign Office located west of the Spreeinsel – in a most impressive way, though. The severe old Reichsbank building, which slightly follows the bend of the Spree and was used during GDR times as the seat of the SED Central Committee, has been given a new, modern interpretation that is also well suited to its inner-city setting though a new addition by architects Müller and Reimann. The well-proportioned interplay of glass façades, natural stone surfaces, and interior courtyards offers a pleasant contrast to the older building’s seemingly endless rows of window axes. From the northern patio of the new section, which is accessible to the public for exhibitions and events and houses a small café, a view opens onto the semi-restored urban space around Werderscher Markt.
* See Bundesministerium für Raumordnung, Bauwesen und Städtebau mit Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung und Umweltschutz, Internationaler städtebaulicher Ideenwettbewerb Spreeinsel Berlin [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 Spree Island Berlin (Bonn-Berlin, 1994).
** See Bruno Flierl, Berlin baut um – Wessen Stadt wird die Stadt? [Berlin is Rebuilding – Whose City will it Be?] Berlin, 1998, p. 107ff.
*** See Federal Ministry for Regional Planning.
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