Capital dilemma: Germany's search for a new architecture of democracyThe decision to move Germany's government seat from Bonn to Berlin by the year 2000 poses an epic architectural challenge and has fostered an international debate on which building styles are appropriate to represent German national identity. Capital Dilemma investigates the political decisions and historical events behind the redesign of Berlin's official architecture. It tells a complex and exciting drama of politics, memory, cultural values, and architecture, in which Helmut Kohl, Albert Speer, Sir Norman Foster, and I. M. Pei all figure as players. If capital city design projects are symbols of national identity and historical consciousness, Berlin is the supreme example. In fact, architecture has played a pivotal role throughout Germany's turbulent twentieth-century history. After the fall of the monarchy, Germany gave birth to the Bauhaus, whose founders argued that their own revolutionary designs could shape human destiny. The century's warring ideologies, Nazism and Communism, also used architecture for their own political ends. In its latest incarnation, Berlin will become the capital of the fifth German state in this century to be ruled from that city. How will the official architecture of reunified Berlin, a democratic capital being built amid totalitarian remains, be different this time around? Th e Federal Republic of Germany, a highly stable democracy in stark contrast to its predecessors, has been struggling with burdensome architectural legacies. In the process, it has considered remedies as varied as outright destruction, refurbishment, and, in the case of the former Nazi Central Bank now being converted into the new Foreign Ministry, physical concealment. |
What people are saying - Write a review
Capital Dilemma: Germany's Search for a New Architecture of Democracy
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictThe reunification of Germany in 1990 presented the country with a millennial opportunity to reestablish the capital in Berlin, the former Prussian capital, which had metastasized into the capital of ... Read full review
Contents
Introduction | 11 |
HEADQUARTERS FOR A DIVIDED NATION | 21 |
Capital of SelfEffacement | 23 |
Copyright | |
17 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Capital Dilemma:: Germany's Search for a New Architecture of Democracy Michael Z. Wise,J. Wiseman No preview available - 1998 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic archi Aviation Ministry Axel Schultes Bauhaus Behnisch Bonn Bonn's building's built Bundestag capital Chancellor Kohl Communist competition construction cupola democracy dome East Berlin East German entry European facade Federal Republic Federal Strip figure Foreign Ministry former Reichsbank Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung German architects German Democratic Republic German government German Historical Museum German politicians Germany's Giinter glass headquarters Helmut Helmut Kohl Herzog Hitler Hohenzollern Holocaust I. M. Pei Ibid interview with author Jakubeit Keilholz Klaus Kohl's Kollhoff Marx Marx-Engels-Platz memorial modern modernist monument Nazi Nazi-era official architectural panels parliament parliamentary Party past political postwar President proposed Prussian Quoted Reich Chancellery Reichsbank Reichstag renovation Royal Palace Schinkel Schloss Bellevue Schultes's Schwippert Sir Norman Foster socialist Soviet Speer's Spreebogen Stalinallee stone structure symbolic tecture Third Reich tion towers Ulbricht unification unified Berlin unified Germany urban Verlag Wallot's walls West World War 11