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60 Incoherent Renovation in Berlin: Is There a Way

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60 Incoherent Renovation in Berlin: Is There a Way New Design Ideas Vol.3, No.1, 2019, pp.60-78 INCOHERENT RENOVATION IN BERLIN: IS THERE A WAY FORWARD? Malcolm Millais Independent researcher, Porto, Portugal Abstract. This paper briefly describes the fates of four of Berlin‟s most iconic cultural buildings. These are the Berlin Palace, the Neues Museum, the Berlin Dom (Cathedral) and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Using a variety of historical styles, all these buildings were built, or finished, in the nineteenth century, and all suffered serious damage due to aerial bombing in the Second World War. As all were repairable, the obvious choice might seem to reinstate them to their original condition: but this did not happen to any of them. This paper examines the incoherence of the various renovations, and briefly addresses the problem of formulating a coherent approach to renovation, particularly with reference to the 1964 Venice Charter. Keywords: Berlin, renovation, Venice Charter, iconic buildings, war damage, monstrous carbuncle, wartime bombing, cultural destruction. Corresponding Author: Malcolm Millais, Porto, Portugal, e-mail: [email protected] Received: 4 December 2018; Accepted: 24 January 2019; Published: 28 June 2019. 1. Introduction What can be said about all four of the buildings examined here is that: All, except in some aspects the Neues Museum, were extremely solidly built, so, given routine maintenance, could have be expected to have lasted for probably hundreds of years. All were severely damaged by aerial bombing during the Second World War. All were repairable. All suffered further destruction due to various political ideologies such as Communism, Modernism and Nationalism. All have been reinstated in a variety of ways, none of which are universally accepted. All suffered from what could be called the Ruskin-Viollet-le-Duc Dichotomy. According to John Ruskin, restoration is „...the most total destruction a building can suffer,‟ as it is „impossible ...to restore anything that has been great or beautiful in architecture‟ (Semes, 2009, p122). With the aid of William Morris, the doctrine that any new material added to an historic structure must be different to the original was elaborated. On the other hand, Viollet-le-Duc wrote „to restore an edifice means ... to reestablish it in a finished state which may in fact never have existed at any given time.‟ 60 M. MILLAIS: INCOHERENT RENOVATION IN BERLIN: IS THERE A WAY FORWARD? Viollet-le-Duc was able to bring to his extensive restoration work an „unrivalled technical mastery of medieval design and construction (Semes, 2009, p.117). As is well known, modern architecture has, over the past seventy years been a sharply divisive topic, epitomised by the oft-repeated phrase „loved by architects and hated by nearly everyone else.‟ Extraordinarily, thanks to Ruskin, via what is usually known as the Venice Charter, (Venice Charter, 1964) this polarisation has been carried into the restoration of buildings. So that for every restoration project there are diametrically opposed views, which means there can never be a consensus. The Venice Charter, officially entitled the International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites, is dated 1964. Written at the height of the near total acceptance of architectural modernism, it contained, in Article 9, for restoration the almost deranged requirement that: ‘It must stop at the point where conjecture begins, and in this case moreover any extra work which is indispensable must be distinct from the architectural composition and must bear a contemporary stamp’ Until now, „contemporary stamp‟ can only mean as dictated by modernism. And this means that the requirement is „deranged,‟ as the basic tenet of modernism is the total rejection of all previous ideas. So, by definition, any „extra work‟ is bound to be incoherent. Although this interpretation is almost universally accepted, it is interesting to note that one of the original authors of the charter, Raymond Lemaire, was never quite sure what exactly „contemporary stamp‟ meant. When he was responsible for the renovation of the Great Beguinage of Leuven (see Note 1), he showed „much derogation to the Venice Charter‟s articles, including those for which he proved most influential (Houbart, 2014, p.229). A strange spin-off from all this is something called façadism. This is where the façade of an historic building (see Note 2) is kept intact whilst the interior is demolished to allow something „unhistorical‟ to be built inside, sometimes appearing incongruously above the retained façade. The restorations of the four Berlin buildings described here provide ample evidence of the unsatisfactory state of affairs that currently rules such work. To clarify this, the restoration of each building is described and then critically assessed, with the responses to the projects noted. Finally, ways forward are commented on. 2. Historical background of Germany and Berlin On 18 January 1871, princes of the German states, except Austria, gathered at the Palace of Versailles to proclaim William I of Prussia as the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm I, of a politically and administratively integrated German nation-state. The kingdom of Prussia had been proclaimed in 1701, with Berlin as its capital. Prussia had been ruled for centuries by the House of Hohenzollern, and it was from this family that the German Kaisers came. So the new unified Germany was in many ways an extension of Prussia, with Prussia‟s capital Berlin becoming Germany‟s, and its ruling family, the Hohenzollerns, becoming the ruling family. The Kaisers ruled until 1918, but with the end of the First World War, the then Kaiser, Wilhelm II, abdicated, and Germany became a democratic republic, usually known as the Weimar Republic. This effectively came to end in 1933 when Adolf 61 NEW DESIGN IDEAS, V.3, N.1, 2019 Hitler, leader of the National Socialist Party, the Nazi Party, was appointed Chancellor of Germany. By national referendum, Hitler was confirmed the leader, the Führer, in 1934, and Germany became the German Empire, or the Third Reich (The Holy Roman Empire and the Prussian led German Empire, being the first two). Hitler pursued an aggressive foreign policy, culminating with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, provoking the most destructive event in human history, the Second World War. This ended May 1945 with millions killed, maimed and traumatised, and much of Europe left in ruins, including Berlin. The victorious powers, the USA, Soviet Union, France and Great Britain divided Germany into four zones, which remained intact until 1949, after which the Soviet zone became the German Democratic Republic, or GDR, and the rest, West Germany. It was only in 1990 that East and West Germany were united to form the present day Germany. Figure 1. Map of Berlin pre-1989 The city of Berlin was entirely within the Soviet zone, so was inside East Germany. However the city was divided into four sectors in line with the zoning of post-war Germany. When the Soviet zone became East Germany, the sector became East Berlin, the other sectors being amalgamated into West Berlin, which was part of West Germany. This division, now hardened by the Cold War, became a physical reality in 1961, when the East Germans made the separation concrete by building a physical wall between East Berlin and West Berlin, which could only be crossed at armed check points – the infamous Berlin Wall. The whole wall was subject to East German armed surveillance, and unauthorised crossings meant the transgressor could be shot to death, which occurred multiple times. 3. Four Berlin buildings of cultural significance The buildings are presented in historical order of construction. The Berlin Palace – Berliner Schloss or Stadtschloss The Berlin Palace is a building in the centre of Berlin, and served as the main residence of the Electors of Brandenburg, the Kings of Prussia, and after 1871, the German Emperors. Although the site had been used since the 15th century, the palace described 62 M. MILLAIS: INCOHERENT RENOVATION IN BERLIN: IS THERE A WAY FORWARD? here was only started in 1701. The design was changed a number of times and the shape of the palace was only finalised by the middle of the 18th century. The dome, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, was only built in 1865. The palace was built in the baroque style. Figure 2. The Berlin Palace in 1898 The Weimar Republic turned part of the palace into the Museum of Applied Arts, with other areas being used for state receptions. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the palace was basically ignored. During the Second World War the palace was twice hit by bombs, and caught fire, with a large part of the palace being burnt out. However the shell remained stable and much of the original decoration still intact, and some parts of the palace could still be used, and were until 1949. Then further damage was done to the building during the filming of the Soviet film The Battle of Berlin. Photo 1. War-damage 63 NEW DESIGN IDEAS, V.3, N.1, 2019 Though repairable, in 1950 the GDR leadership decided to demolish the ruins of the original palace, as it was an icon of Imperial Germany, and this did not suit their ideology. In 1973, twenty-three years later, construction began on the Palace of the Republic, which was complete by 1976. Built in the International Modern style, the new palace housed the seat of the parliament of the GDR, plus many other facilities for public use. Photo 2. Palace of the Republic in 1990 just before closure In 1990, the building was closed due to the presence of asbestos, and by 2003 all the asbestos had been removed together with all the internal and external fittings. It had stood unused from 1990, and in 2003 it was decided to demolish it, though demolition only started in 2006.
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