The Reichstag building (officially: plenary area Reichstag building;
unofficially also Bundestag or Wallot-Bau) on the Republic Square in
Berlin has been the seat of the German Bundestag since 1999. The Federal
Assembly for the election of the German Federal President has also met
here since 1994.
The building was erected between 1884 and 1894
in Neo-Renaissance style according to plans by the architect Paul Wallot
in the Tiergarten district on the left bank of the Spree. It housed both
the Reichstag of the German Empire and that of the Weimar Republic.
Initially, the Federal Council of the Empire also met there. After
severe damage from the Reichstag fire of 1933 and World War II, the
building was restored in a modernized form in the 1960s and was used for
exhibitions and special events. From 1995 to 1999, the Reichstag was
fundamentally redesigned by Norman Foster for permanent use as a
parliament building, which was decided in 1991. On April 19, 1999, the
keys were handed over to the President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang
Thierse. The German Bundestag has been meeting there ever since. A
landmark in the cityscape is the accessible glass dome above the plenary
hall based on an idea by Gottfried Böhm.
The first seat of a Reichstag in Berlin was the building of the
Prussian manor house at Leipziger Strasse 3. The Reichstag of the
Prussian-dominated North German Confederation met here from 1867. After
the founding of the German Reich in 1871, the members of parliament from
the southern German states were added, so that a larger building was
needed. They first moved into the Prussian House of Representatives
(Leipziger Strasse 75). This soon turned out to be too small. On April
19, 1871, the Reichstag passed a motion that said: “The construction of
a parliament house that corresponds to the tasks of the German Reichstag
and is worthy of representing the German people is an urgent need.”
Another, with a view to the one that had just been achieved Victory over
France and the founding of an empire The proposal for the new building,
formulated in a strongly nationalistic way, did not find a majority
either.
A parliament building commission should make the
preparations for a "worthy" new building. The task was to determine the
building site, to develop the construction program, to announce an
architectural competition and to ensure a suitable interim solution. A
provisional arrangement was quickly found: in just 70 days, the building
at Leipziger Strasse 4, previously the seat of the Royal Porcelain
Manufactory, was made suitable for parliamentary use. A transitional
period of five to six years was expected. In fact, it was 23 years.
Property
The problems began with the choice of a
suitable plot of land for the new building. After a short search, the
commission determined a building site on the east side of what was then
Königsplatz (today: Platz der Republik). However, the palace of the
Polish Count Athanasius Raczynski, a Prussian diplomat and art
collector, still stood there. However, the members of the commission
believed that they could count on the support of Kaiser Wilhelm I and
ultimately also the approval of the Count, and announced an
international competition for this property.
In June 1872, Ludwig
Bohnstedt from Gotha won the competition, in which over a hundred
architects took part. His design received wide public approval, but
could not be realized. Count Raczyński firmly refused to make his
property available, and Wilhelm I showed little inclination to pursue
expropriation proceedings, although he too found the location suitable.
Gradually, the commission agreed on an alternative location further
east closer to the city center. However, Bismarck, Wilhelm I. and the
conservative members of parliament vehemently rejected this building
site, since the Reichstag moved closer to the city palace, which was
interpreted as a political upgrade of the parliament. In 1881, the first
location could be chosen, since the count had died in 1874. His son then
sold the Raczyński Palace to the Prussian state in the same year.
In December 1881, the Reichstag decided to purchase the building
site. A lively public debate arose over the question of whether Ludwig
Bohnstedt should be commissioned out of competition to rework and
execute his winning design of 1872.
In February 1882, however, a
new competition was announced, this time only architects with a "German
tongue" were admitted - a requirement of the Association of German
Architects and Engineers' Associations. High prize money invited
participation. Bohnstedt also took part again, but had no chance, just
like Heinrich von Ferstel, for example. Out of 189 anonymous entries,
the designs by Paul Wallot from Frankfurt am Main and Friedrich von
Thiersch from Munich emerged as the winners; both received first prizes
on June 24, 1882. But since Wallot clearly had more votes on his side
(19 out of 21), he got the coveted contract. On June 9, 1883, the
associated budget was approved. This was preceded by a duel between
August Reichensperger, who preferred a neo-Gothic design (as "Germanic
architecture") to Wallot's Renaissance building, and its supporter
Robert Gerwig.
A lengthy and laborious work process began for the
architect, a constant confrontation with several competent authorities.
According to a decision in 1880, the Academy of Civil Engineering should
definitely be called in as an advisor for the future construction of a
new Reichstag building - an unfortunate arrangement, because many
Academy members were involved in the previous competition with their own
designs. The Academy could not be shown to have acted improperly, but
its frequent, unusually pedantic criticism of Wallot's work raised
doubts about its objectivity, which were also expressed in public.
The building department in the Prussian Ministry of Public Works, as
the second expert authority, also demanded far-reaching changes. Wallot
himself remained outwardly patient, complaining only in personal
letters. At intervals of a few months, he always had to deliver new
designs for the arrangement of the interior rooms and the design of the
facades. In the end, independent observers believed that they no longer
recognized the award-winning design.
Finally, on June 9,
1884, the cornerstone was laid. Many military and only a few
parliamentarians attended the rainy ceremony. Three Hohenzollerns had
the leading roles: Kaiser Wilhelm I, his son and his grandson – the
later Kaiser Friedrich III. and Wilhelm II. When Wilhelm I hammered, the
symbolic tool shattered.
exterior shape
During the construction work, the dome
developed into a particular problem. Various objections had forced
Wallot to move it from its central position above the hemicycle to
the western entrance hall. According to this plan, the building was
now erected by the Berlin stonemasonry company Zeidler & Wimmel. The
sculptural decoration came from the sculptor Friedrich Volke. As
construction progressed, the architect became more and more
convinced that the forced change had to be reversed. In tough
negotiations, he obtained approval for this. In the meantime,
however, the supporting walls around the plenum had already been
erected - too weak for the planned stone dome, as all calculations
showed. The tambour formed from individual brick walls on which the
dome was to rest - the abutment of the dome - could not absorb the
horizontal component of the dome thrust acting perpendicularly to
the walls. In 1889, the civil engineer Hermann Zimmermann, employed
in the Berlin Reichseisenbahnamt, found a solution outside of his
official work. He reduced the dome height from 85 m to almost 75 m
and proposed a relatively light, technically sophisticated
construction made of steel and glass.
Zimmermann designed a
steel space frame, the lower octagonal ring of which was supported
by a sophisticated bearing system in such a way that the four walls
were only loaded in their planes, i. H. each wall acted statically
as a disk. Zimmermann's three-dimensional framework was statically
determined externally and internally and could therefore only be
calculated with the help of the equilibrium conditions. The
statically determined bearing (external static determination) of the
dome allowed the dome to expand or contract without constraint, e.g.
due to temperature change. This dome system went down in the
historiography of structural engineering as the Zimmermann dome – as
an “ingenious structural machine”. Zimmermann himself only published
the structural analysis of his dome in a generalized form in 1901.
The Zimmermann dome provided the plenary hall with natural light and
gave the parliament building the desired dignified finish. In
addition, it was considered a symbol of the innovative strength and
efficiency of German civil engineers based on structural analysis in
their completion phase (1875-1900). Zimmermann's Reichstag dome is
also a triumph of classical structural engineering.
Wilhelm
II, in office as Kaiser since 1888, initially had a very positive
attitude towards the Reichstag building. He also supported Wallot on
the question of where to place the dome, although he found it a
nuisance in principle - because he saw it as a symbol of the claims
of the unloved parliament and because it was higher than the dome of
the Berlin City Palace with its 67 meters . From about 1892, the
emperor's growing dislike of the building became apparent; he
described it as the "summit of tastelessness" and "completely
unsuccessful creation" and unofficially reviled it as the "imperial
monkey house". He developed a clear personal aversion to Wallot,
presumably because he had spontaneously rejected a change request.
He refused the architect several awards for which he was intended.
He wrote to his confidante Philipp zu Eulenburg that he had managed
to insult Wallot several times in personal conversations.
Paul Wallot developed the building in the style of historicism that
was common for government buildings at the time: For the exterior,
the architect mainly used forms from the Italian High Renaissance
(Neo-Renaissance) and combined them with some elements of the German
Renaissance, with some Neo-Baroque and a steel and glass
construction of the dome. The result was apparently not perceived by
many contemporaries as a successful synthesis, but as an
unconvincing juxtaposition and confusion. Traditionalists rejected
the technical modernity of the dome; younger critics could not get
used to the massive ashlar building in the Renaissance style. The
influential Berlin city planning officer and successful architect
Ludwig Hoffmann was particularly harsh in his judgment: he called
the building a “first-class hearse”. However, other sources say that
the majority of German architects emphatically praised the building.
The keystone was laid on December 5, 1894. Again it was a
predominantly military event. Wallot led the Emperor through the
building; Wilhelm II only let words of approval be heard in public.
In his speech from the throne at the opening of the Reichstag, the
Kaiser said:
"May God's blessing rest on the house, may the
greatness and prosperity of the kingdom be the goal that all those
called to work in its rooms strive for in self-denying loyalty!"
The construction costs amounted to 24 million gold marks
(adjusted for purchasing power in today's currency: around 190.9
million euros). They were paid from the reparations that France had
to pay after losing the war of 1870/1871.
The Reichstag building was generally well prepared for its tasks. The
building technology was completely up to date. The building was supplied
with electricity by its own power plant. There was a central heating
control with temperature sensors, electric fans, double-glazed windows,
telephones, flush toilets, and the like. In addition to the meeting
rooms for the Reichstag and Bundesrat, there were: a reading room,
various consulting rooms, a refreshment room, cloakrooms, washrooms and
changing rooms, etc. The library contained 90,000 volumes when it was
set up and was designed for 320,000 volumes. The Reichstag archives soon
contained millions of documents that could be sent to the reading room
with an ingenious pneumatic elevator system.
One shortcoming,
however, was soon to be recognized - there was a lack of sufficient work
space for all members of parliament. Compared to other European
parliament buildings, the building was relatively small with a floor
area of 138 m × 96 m. The hardships of a fictitious member of parliament
were described as follows: "What good were the finely carved wooden
panels, the only beautiful view of the Königsplatz [...] if he couldn't
find an empty chair and no free work table for quiet reading and
writing?" Also conversions in the following years could not eliminate
the problem. The proportional representation system of the Weimar
Republic even increased the number of deputies from 397 to over 600.
Towards the end of the 1920s, extension buildings were planned north of
the Reichstag, for which an architectural competition was held. However,
the plans were never carried out.
A limited competition was
announced for the interiors, which included e.g. Gustav Schönleber,
Eugen Bracht and Franz Stuck were invited. Decorative forms – gables
with fan rosettes over the doors, obelisks, turned columns, garlands and
allegorical figures – were often found in great abundance in
representative Renaissance buildings, for example in the town halls of
wealthy cities, and now adorned the Reichstag building in a similar way.
This elaborate design was perceived by viewers as typically German and
was also meant as such – as a counterbalance and supplement to an
external view that, despite other ingredients, primarily conveyed the
impression of the then widespread “international Neo-Renaissance”. Most
of the rooms, including the large meeting room, were lined with wood in
the usual historicist design language - with oak, ash, stained pine and
tropical woods. In part, there were room-acoustic reasons for this; in
any case, wood was cheaper than stone. Essentially, however, it was also
about questions of style; for Wallot designed the interior, including
the furniture, largely in the style of the German Renaissance of the
16th and 17th centuries.
The Frankfurt glass painter Alexander
Linnemann, who was a friend of Wallot's, designed and produced numerous
glass windows.
More artistic embellishments
The artistic
design was not yet complete when the keystone was laid in 1894. Above
all, it was designed to express the unity of the empire established in
1871. The imperial coat of arms in the gable above the main entrance and
the imperial crown on the top of the dome symbolize the goal achieved,
as does a Germania group by Reinhold Begas above the top of the main
portal. On the other hand, reference was made in many places to the fact
that the German Reich was composed of several states - for example with
the coats of arms of the German states (including the Hanseatic cities)
and with the personified rivers Rhine and Vistula, which can be seen to
the left and right of the main portal, as well as other (no longer
existing) German city coats of arms and river symbols in the windows of
the west facade. In addition, there were contemporary motifs such as the
16 figures on the corner towers.
At the northwest tower you will
find
trade and shipping
big industry
small and domestic
industry
Electrical engineering
at the northeast tower
Upbringing
Instruction
Art
literature
at the southeast
tower
military strength on land
military power at sea
administration of justice
statesmanship
at the southwest tower
agriculture
animal husbandry
viticulture
beer brewery
They are partly related to the interior rooms of the time (library under
the north-east tower, refreshment room under the south-west tower), but
also reveal references to the cardinal points (shipping and large-scale
industry in north-west Germany, viticulture in the south-west, etc.).
The four corner towers also stood for the four kingdoms within the
empire, Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony and Württemberg. In order to take the
idea of imperial unity into account himself – and to avoid regional
jealousies as far as possible – the architect was careful when selecting
the artists for the decoration program to bring in employees from all
parts of Germany.
In the spring of 1896, two equestrian statues
of imperial heralds, made of copper by the Munich sculptor Rudolf
Maison, were erected on the east side of the building.
Wallot,
worn down by the constant, often irrelevant arguments, accepted a
professorship in Dresden in 1899, but was repeatedly consulted about the
artistic decoration of the Reichstag until his death in 1912.
As a dedication to the building, Wallot had determined that the
architrave of the west portal should receive the inscription "Dem
deutscher Volke" - which was met with lively journalistic debate,
alleged rejection by the Kaiser and a number of counter-proposals. As a
result, the proposed location remained vacant for over 20 years. During
the First World War, the Undersecretary of State in the Reich
Chancellery, Arnold Wahnschaffe, gave the impetus to affix the
inscription now to counteract the loss of support for the Kaiser among
the population. The Emperor let it be known that he would not give
express approval for the inscription; but he has no qualms if the
Reichstag Decorations Commission decides to do so. A day later, the
President of the Reichstag, Johannes Kaempf, announced that the
inscription should now be affixed.
The architect and industrial
designer Peter Behrens was commissioned to design the lettering in
autumn 1915. Two captured gun barrels from the liberation wars of
1813-1815 were melted down to make the 60 cm high letters. The foundry
S. A. Loevy took over the work. The lettering was applied between
December 20 and 24, 1916.
At the end of the 1920s, the building construction department of the Prussian Ministry of Finance, headed by Martin Kießling, was commissioned to conduct architectural competitions in order to explore suitable architectural and urban planning options for expanding the office capacities for members of parliament and the Reichstag administration. This followed on from a competition held in 1912 to redesign Königsplatz, which the architect Otto March had won. The task of the competition and the designs submitted were passionately commented on in the 1930 Stadtbau magazine by its editor Werner Hegemann. Hegemann massively criticized the existing Reichstag building, whose demolition he advocated because of its "out of scale", "clumsy" and "disciplined" design, and advocated an office tower north of the Reichstag as the preferable solution. Among the 17 participants in the competition were Karl Wach from Düsseldorf, Georg Holzhauer and Franz Stamm from Munich, Hans Heinrich Grotjahn from Leipzig, Wilhelm Kreis from Dresden, Heinrich Straumer from Berlin, Paul Meißner from Dresden, German Bestelmeyer from Munich, Adolf Abel from Cologne, Gottlob Schaupp from Frankfurt am Main and Rudolf Klophaus, August Schoch and Erich zu Putlitz from Hamburg. Due to a lack of money - Germany was severely affected by the global economic crisis - none of the designs were implemented. Only the relocation of the Berlin Victory Column, which was suggested as part of the competition, was realized in 1938/1939.
On January 30, 1933, Reich President Paul von Hindenburg appointed
NSDAP leader Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor; on February 1, he
dissolved the Reichstag. On the night of February 28, 1933, flames
erupted from the dome of the Reichstag building. The plenary hall and
some surrounding rooms burned out. It was clearly arson; the question of
guilt has not been clarified beyond doubt to this day. The National
Socialists were beneficiaries of the fire. That same night, they used
massive terror against political opponents. They prompted the Reich
President to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree for the protection of the
people and state the following day. Section 1 temporarily suspended the
essential basic rights, Section 5 made the death penalty possible for
the political offense of “high treason”.
The constitutive session
of the new parliament on March 21, 1933, the "Day of Potsdam", took
place after the Reichstag fire. Contrary to popular belief, Hitler never
gave a speech in the Reichstag building. Hitler held all his Reichstag
speeches in the Kroll Opera House, which had been converted into a
parliament building.
In May 1933, the Dutch communist Marinus van
der Lubbe, along with prominent members of the communist party,
including the Bulgarian Georgi Dimitroff, was accused of arson before
the Imperial Court in Leipzig. The prosecution tried to portray the fire
as a signal for an armed coup. In the political show trial, van der
Lubbe received the death penalty on the basis of a dubious confession
and previously hastily changed legislation and was executed in January
1934. The co-accused had to be acquitted due to lack of evidence. As a
propaganda event, the trial was a disaster for the organizers, mainly
because of Dimitrov's rhetorical superiority in his speech duels with
Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring.
While the Reichstag, in which
only National Socialist deputies sat since July 1933, met in the Kroll
Opera House opposite, the dome of the Reichstag building was
provisionally repaired, but the destroyed plenary area was not.
Propaganda exhibitions such as “The Wandering Jew” and “Bolshevism
without a Mask” were shown in the house. For a time, models of the
planned “World Capital Germania” were housed here, an urban planning
superpower fantasy that Albert Speer had designed in close contact with
Hitler. The "Hall of the People" with its dome height of 290 meters,
which was to be built right next to the Reichstag building, would have
shrunk it "to the relative size of an outside toilet" according to the
judgment of a contemporary author.
In 1938, as part of the
planning for the north-south axis, it was decided to keep the building
and have it remodeled by Woldemar Brinkmann, with the plenary hall being
enlarged. After the conversion, it was intended that the Reichstag
building would "return to its purpose as a meeting place for the
Reichstag".
During the Second World War, the building with
bricked-up windows served as an air raid shelter. AEG produced electron
tubes there, a military hospital was set up, and from 1943 to 1945 the
gynecological station of the nearby Charité was housed here. About
60-100 children were born in the Reichstag building.
The Red Army
saw one of the key symbols of Nazi Germany in the Reichstag building.
During the Battle of Berlin, after heavy fighting that lasted from April
28 to late evening May 1, 1945, the Reichstag was occupied by the 150th,
171st and 207th Infantry Divisions of the 79th Infantry Corps of the 3rd
Shock Army of the 1st Infantry Division. Belorussian Front and other
combat units taken. Nine red Soviet flags had been flown in from Moscow.
On April 30, 1945, the flag of the 150th Rifle Division was planted as a
"banner of victory" first over the entrance portal and then at around
10:40 p.m. on the roof of the building. Political officers later spread
the word that the flag had already flown over Berlin at around 2:25 p.m.
At around 3 p.m., the commander of the 3rd Shock Army, General
Kuznetsov, called Marshal Zhukov’s command post and reported: “Our red
banner is flying over the Reichstag!” But he also informed Zhukov: “In
some places on the upper floors and in fighting is still going on in the
cellars.” The photo by the military photographer Yevgeny Chaldej of this
event, which later became a media icon, had to be recreated shortly
afterwards because of the ongoing fighting at the time; only on the
evening of May 1 did the last defenders in the basement of the house
capitulate. The photo symbolizes the end of the Second World War in
Europe, at the same time the end of Hitler's Germany and thus the
victory over German fascism.
Immediately after the end of the Second World War, the Reichstag
building, which had been heavily contested for the last time, stood as a
partial ruin in an environment characterized by rubble. The surrounding
open spaces were used by the starving population to grow potatoes and
vegetables. On November 22, 1954, the dome was blown up - because of
alleged static insecurity and to relieve the damaged building. This
justification is described as "questionable" in critical texts. In the
years that followed, the newly founded Federal Building Administration
limited itself to securing the building.
In 1955, the Bundestag
decided to completely restore it. However, the type of use in divided
Germany was still uncertain. In 1961, the architect Paul Baumgarten, the
winner of a restricted-eligibility competition, was commissioned to
design and direct the reconstruction, which was completed in 1973.
Numerous decorative elements of the facade were omitted, the corner
towers were reduced in height, and a new dome was dispensed with. The
expensive interior design, which was damaged but largely preserved, was
almost completely removed. The remains disappeared behind cover plates;
new mezzanines increased the usable area and largely changed the
original spatial structure. The plenary hall was twice as big and could
have accommodated all the MPs of a reunified Germany. Since the
four-power agreement of 1971, no plenary sessions of the Bundestag have
been allowed to be held in Berlin. Only committee or parliamentary group
meetings were possible in the newly furnished rooms.
Baumgarten's
interventions (the cost of which is estimated at 110 million marks) -
supported or prescribed by the Federal Building Department - appear all
too rigorous today, but can be explained by the historical situation. He
used the formal language of his time, the modern style of the 1960s.
Decorative design was taboo. Straight lines and smooth surfaces
dominated. In particular, the representative buildings of the late 19th
century were considered bombastic, overloaded and not worth preserving.
Monument preservation aspects had hardly any weight. In addition, in the
case of the Reichstag building, there was a special motif that went
beyond aesthetic considerations: the building was originally the symbol
of a pre-democratic form of government, despite its parliamentary
purpose. A weak democracy and a brutal dictatorship followed. The
Germans had just found their way back to what was still a young
democracy. So it seemed only logical to clearly set ourselves apart from
the past with clear cuts and a strictly contemporary aesthetic.
During the division of Berlin, the Reichstag building was in the British
sector. The Berlin Wall ran directly along the east side of the
building. The "lonely, shot-up Reichstag" became a symbol - as a
"sandstone colossus in no man's land between the hostile world systems".
A museum about the Bundestag and the history of the Reichstag building
was set up in the building. Visiting the outdoor terraces with a view
over the Berlin Wall was part of the usual program for foreign state
guests. The exhibition “Questions on German History” has been shown in
the building since 1971 and has been visited by several million people.
On the initiative of Chancellor Helmut Kohl and his Federal Minister
for Building, Oscar Schneider, an expert opinion was obtained from
Gottfried Böhm of the RWTH Aachen University in 1985 on how the building
could be used in the future - especially in the event of reunification -
and what modifications would be necessary for this. The report was
treated confidentially. Until 1988, Böhm designed a glass dome that
visitors could walk through, which was intended to symbolize openness
and democratic participation.
After German reunification on
October 3, 1990, the first session of the German Bundestag in reunified
Germany took place in the Reichstag building on October 4; for the first
time with the 144 deputies who were sent to the Bundestag by the freely
elected People's Chamber for the period up to the first all-German
election. At the meeting, the new federal ministers were sworn in and
Chancellor Helmut Kohl made his government statement.
"The seat of the German Bundestag is Berlin" - this was determined by
the Bundestag after an intensive and controversial debate in the capital
city resolution on June 20, 1991 in Bonn with a narrow majority of 338
to 320 votes. The place for the plenary sessions should be the Reichstag
building. The implementation of this decision required a conversion into
a modern parliament building. This lasted until 1999. The 14th German
Bundestag said goodbye to the parliamentary summer break in Bonn and met
for the first time on September 8, 1999 in the new plenary hall of the
Reichstag building.
Competition
A design competition was
announced in 1993 for the conversion of the Reichstag building. The main
planning criteria were transparency, clarity and exemplary energy
technology. Out of 80 submitted designs, three winners were selected
equally: Foster + Partners (England), Pi de Bruijn (Netherlands) and
Santiago Calatrava (Spain). Norman Foster had planned a free-standing,
transparent roof over the actual building and parts of the surrounding
area - a proposal that was made for aesthetic reasons ("Germany's
largest gas station"), but also because of the expected costs of 1.3
billion marks (adjusted for purchasing power in today's world).
Currency: around 1,086.4 million euros) did not receive sufficient
public approval. In a revision phase, he then prevailed against his two
competitors with a completely new design.
In the new design, too,
Foster had not planned a dome for the roof of the Reichstag. In his
explanations, he even expressly distanced himself from any elevation on
the roof that would be built "for purely symbolic reasons"; he could not
recommend either an umbrella (similar to the original design) or a dome.
This position could not be maintained. In the years 1994/1995, the
proposals for the design of the roof had to be revised several times due
to pressure from the political decision-makers. On May 8, 1995, Foster's
final design for a glass walk-in dome was presented and approved by MPs.
The architect Calatrava then alleged that this was a plagiarism of his
own competition entry, which envisaged a transparent dome of a similar
shape. After expert opinions and counter-expert opinions, the opinion of
most experts prevailed, according to which no special legal protection
could be claimed for a traditional architectural design element such as
a dome. In addition, when the competition was held in 1992, Gottfried
Böhm published his design for a dome, which he had designed in 1988 on
behalf of Chancellor Helmut Kohl. This design already shows a glass
construction with spiraling walkways for visitors and is apparently the
basis for the dome that was finally reluctantly realized by Norman
Foster.
The contract with Foster for the conversion of the seat
of parliament was linked to the strict condition that the total costs
must not exceed 600 million marks, including all expenses for the dome
as well as the ancillary costs and fees.
Wrapped Reichstag
The
artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude had been propagating their
project “Wrapped Reichstag” since 1971. In January 1994, a final plenary
debate took place in the Bonn Bundestag on whether a national symbol of
the importance of the Reichstag should become the object of such an art
campaign. The majority voted in favour. From June 24 to July 7, 1995,
the building was completely shrouded in shiny silver fireproof fabric
and tied with blue rope a good three centimeters thick. The summer
action quickly took on the character of a folk festival. Five million
visitors were present in the two weeks. The response in the
international media made the Reichstag building known around the world.
The last event in the Reichstag building before the renovation took
place on December 2, 1994. At the end of May 1995, the preparations for
the construction work were completed - the asbestos removal and the
exposure of the original building structures. Numerous original
components were salvaged and later included in the finished building.
One of the demands placed on the architects was respect for the historic
building substance. Traces of history should also remain visible after
the conversion. This also includes graffiti of Soviet soldiers in
Cyrillic script from May 1945, which was applied after the capture of
Berlin (“Hitler busted”, “Caucasus-Berlin”). Texts with racist or sexist
statements were removed in agreement with Russian diplomats, the rest
will be shown in the converted Reichstag.
The actual conversion
work began at the end of July 1995 – immediately after the “Covered
Reichstag” was lifted. First, Baumgarten's conversions and fixtures from
the 1960s were removed; 45,000 tons of rubble had to be removed. In
order to guarantee the stability of the modified building, 90 new
support piles were added to the 2,300 that Paul Wallot had originally
had buried in the building's subsoil.
The shell construction
began in June 1996. In the center of the building, a new building was
built in the old building. It mainly includes the plenary hall, which
extends over all three main floors. It is 1200 m² (Wallot's was 640 m²,
Baumgarten's 1375 m²) and has been modified so that the Presidium is now
placed on the east side again, as it was in the early days of the
building. The plenary hall is additionally illuminated by a mirror
system that redirects daylight from the dome into the hall. Visitors
reach the grandstands in the plenum via a specially built mezzanine. On
the second floor are the offices and reception rooms of the President of
the Bundestag and the meeting room of the Council of Elders; The offices
of the members of parliament and the parliamentary groups as well as the
central press lobby are housed on the third floor. A rooftop restaurant
for MEPs is also open to the public after prior security clearance.
Building services, kitchen and cloakroom are on the ground floor and in
the basement.
The north and south wings, around two-thirds of the
building, remained as a historical structure and were only renovated.
Contemporary materials such as exposed concrete, glass and steel
were used in the new building, while limestone and sandstone in light,
warm colors were used in the old building. A newly developed color
concept is intended to contribute to clarity in the building. A total of
nine colors, some of which are very strong, characterize different
areas. The rooms were surrounded by brightly colored wooden panels -
which was sometimes perceived as problematic in relation to the works of
art shown there.
Light gray was initially planned
for the seating, but the members of the Bundestag opposed it. Foster
then commissioned Danish designer Per Arnoldi to find another shade; the
result was Reichstag Blue. The design of the seating on which the MPs
and members of the government sit is called a figura.
The dome, which was designed later, has developed into a much-visited
attraction and a landmark of Berlin. Registered visitors can enter the
building through the west portal. After a security check, two elevators
take you to the 24-metre-high accessible roof (the small “Käfer”
restaurant is located at the back of the roof terrace). The dome on top
has the shape of a half ellipsoid of revolution with a diameter of 38 m
and a height of 23.5 m. Its steel skeleton consists of 24 vertical ribs
at intervals of 15° and 17 horizontal rings at intervals of 1.65 m with
Mass of around 800 tons, covered with 3000 m² of glass with a mass of
around 240 tons. On the inside, two spiral ramps, each 230 m long and
approximately 1.8 m wide and offset by 180°, wind up to a viewing
platform – 40 m above ground level – or in the opposite direction back
down to the roof terrace. The peak height of the dome is 47 m above the
ground - significantly lower than that of Paul Wallot. Up until November
2010, when the dome was freely accessible, an average of 8,000 visitors
were counted every day. The number fell sharply when access was
restricted for security reasons, but still stands at over a million
visitors a year.
By June 2006, more than 18 million people had
visited the Reichstag building to climb the dome, follow debates or be
guided through the building.
Due to terror warnings (the Berliner
Morgenpost spoke of a "danger of Islamist attacks") the dome was closed
to visitors from November 22nd to December 4th, 2010. After that it was
open again for individuals and groups, but only after prior
registration. Since July 2012, on-site registration has been possible
with a lead time of two hours.
Integrated energy concept
During the conversion of the Reichstag building in the 1990s, a building
was created that should be exemplary for planners and engineers in its
consideration of ecological factors. The heating and energy system
consists of a combination of solar technology and mechanical
ventilation, the use of the subsoil as seasonal cold and heat storage
(geothermal energy), combined heat and power technology, combined heat
and power and the use of renewable raw materials.
Special glazing
and insulation reduce heat loss. A solar power system of more than 300
m² on the roof of the Reichstag building and two combined heat and power
plants that run on bio-diesel fuel from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
can together supply 82 percent of the electricity requirements of the
Reichstag and the surrounding parliament buildings. In the summer,
absorption chillers use part of the waste heat from the engines to cool
the buildings. Another part is used to heat saline water, which is
pumped up from a reservoir around 300 meters below the building, to
around 70°C. It is then channeled back underground and stored there; in
winter it is available to heat the buildings. Another pool of water at a
depth of 60 meters can store the winter cold and contribute to the air
conditioning of the buildings when the summer temperatures are
particularly high. These and a few other factors reduce the annual CO2
emissions from the Reichstag building from around 7,000 to 400 to 1,000
tons. With a net floor area of 40,047 m², the energy requirement is
270.9 kWh/(m²×a), which is well below the EnEV requirement value for
modernized old buildings and even for new buildings.
The dome,
which is primarily perceived as a striking architectural element, is
also included in the energy concept. It also serves to illuminate and
ventilate the plenary hall below. Daylight is channeled into the hall
via 360 funnel-shaped mirrors. In order to ensure glare-free light and
to prevent excessive heating in strong sunlight, some of the mirrors can
be covered by a movable, computer-controlled screen that is effective
depending on the position of the sun. Inside the mirror funnel, used air
is directed to the highest point of the building via an exhaust air
nozzle and escapes through a circular opening in the center of the dome;
On this way, it also passes through a heat recovery system, which can
extract usable residual energy from it. A device just below the dome
opening catches rainwater. Wallot had ventilation shafts installed to
supply the Reichstag with fresh air. These shafts have now been
uncovered and made usable again.
Completion
On April 19, 1999,
the symbolic keys were handed over to the President of the German
Bundestag, Wolfgang Thierse, and the first plenary session took place.
After around four years of construction, the conversion was completed on
schedule and within budget. The actual move of the Bundestag took place
during the summer break; With the session of September 8, 1999,
Parliament began its regular work in the Reichstag building.
Due to security measures, containers have been located south-west of
the Reichstag building since 2011, through which registered visitors of
the Bundestag can take guided tours. In the course of 2012, the federal
and state governments of Berlin examined whether it would make sense to
build an underground visitor center based on the US Parliament visitor
center in Washington. However, at the end of 2015, the building and
space commission of the Bundestag Council of Elders decided to plan a
"Visitor and Information Center" (BIZ) on Scheidemannstraße opposite the
Reichstag building. From this central contact point, visitors should be
able to enter the Reichstag through a tunnel. For this purpose, an
architectural competition was announced, which was won by a Swiss
architect's office in January 2017. Despite a planned completion in
2023, however, no date was set for the start of construction, which is
why Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki declared in July 2018 that
he wanted to advance the project. Although Kubicki in September 2018
criticized the planned 6600 m² building as too small with reference to
the ten times larger visitor center of the Capitol in Washington, one
would like u.a. stick to the Swiss winning design for cost reasons.
According to a decision by the Building and Space Commission on July
6, 2018, a 2.5 m deep and up to 10 m wide Aha! ditch is to be built
across the Republic Square in front of the western portal, as well as a
security fence with gates on the sides of the ramp to be erected. In
February 2020, the project was approved by the Bundestag by a majority;
an approval of the Ministry of Finance is still pending. In March 2021,
another obstacle to the start of construction was removed when the main
committee of the Berlin House of Representatives approved the necessary
property purchase agreement with the federal government after a long
dispute. In December 2021, the Federal Office for Building and Regional
Planning completed the design and approval planning and handed over
responsibility for the project to the Federal Agency for Real Estate
Tasks. As of January 2022, according to the website of the Federal
Office for Building and Regional Planning, a cost ceiling of 192 million
euros was set, but no start of construction for the project.
In
April 2022 it became known that due to safety concerns, further
replanning was necessary at the visitor center and that construction
would not start until 2025. Completion is scheduled for 2029 with
increased construction costs of around 250 million euros.
The Reichstag building is the most important complex in the overall
concept for the artistic design of the buildings of the German Bundestag
in Berlin's Spreebogen. The Parliament's Art Advisory Council decided on
proposals that had been drawn up by external experts. A work related to
the building already existed and was to be taken over after the
conversion. 18 other artists were invited to create new works for the
Reichstag, among them, in view of the former four-power status of
Berlin, artists from England (Norman Foster as architect), France
(Christian Boltanski), Russia (Grisha Bruskin) and the USA ( Jenny
Holzer). Just like the German artists of international standing, they
were asked to comment on the history-laden place with their works.
Together with a series of purchases and loans, an important collection
of contemporary art was created in the Reichstag. A total of almost 30
artists are represented with their works.
A few works are briefly
mentioned here:
In 1992, Katharina Sieverding designed a memorial for
those members of parliament who were persecuted and murdered by the
National Socialists. Her spatial installation in the MPs' lobby shows a
large-format, five-part photo painting on the themes of destruction and
rebirth, as well as three commemorative books arranged on wooden tables.
In the western entrance hall, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter faced the
task of placing their works on walls 30 meters high. With back-painted
glass panels totaling 21 meters high in the colors black, red and
yellow, Richter developed an ambiguous variation on the German national
colors. Polke had five light boxes with playful photo collages from
politics and history installed.
Jenny Holzer installed a stele in the
northern entrance hall on which vertical neon strips run. They reproduce
speeches and interjections by members of parliament between 1871 and
1992, which the artist has requested to be continuously updated.
In
the southern entrance hall there are large canvases by Georg Baselitz,
paintings with motifs based on Caspar David Friedrich. Baselitz turned
these motifs upside down, as he had done since the late 1960s, in order
to reinforce the importance of the formal elements.
Bernhard Heisig
provided the painting Time and Life. With echoes of German
Expressionism, an overview of important motifs from German history is
given in a wealth of individual images.
The table with the unit was
set up by Joseph Beuys as a permanent loan: a cast bronze table with a
small box on it, two spheres on the floor in front of it, and a
connecting cable between the top and bottom. A reflection on the flow of
natural and technical energies.
Hans Haacke designed an installation
for the northern inner courtyard. A narrow rectangular wooden trough was
to be filled (with great hesitation) by MPs with soil from their
constituencies. An inscription in illuminated letters remained visible:
"To the population". Any spontaneous plant growth should be left to its
own devices.
The art program was already the subject of much
controversy during the selection phase. Heisig's participation, for
example, provoked energetic protests, with the accusation that as a
painter who was once "close to the state" in the GDR he was not called
to do representative artistic work in the parliament building of a
democracy. The debate about Haacke's draft was even more heated. He had
varied the central inscription in the west gable (“Dem Deutschen Volke”)
with his neon writing, thereby raising the suspicion that he wanted to
distance himself from their statement. The artist himself let it be
known that although he considers the concept of the people to be
burdened by recent German history, he only sees food for thought in his
work, not a fundamentally negative judgement. After three meetings of
the art advisory board and a plenary debate, this work was also
accepted.
The total expenditure for works of art in the Reichstag
building was eight million marks, which corresponded to the then legally
specified quota for art projects in public buildings. The purchase
prices of the individual works of art were not published.
The
parliamentary controversies are reminiscent of a dispute in 1899. While
the painting of the Reichstag had previously been carried out primarily
by history and decorative painters without any artistic claim worth
mentioning, the Munich painter Franz von Stuck was now commissioned by
Wallot to paint paintings for the foyer to create the President of the
Reichstag. He presented two narrow pictures, each 22 meters long, to be
mounted below the ceiling. The approval of colleagues and art experts
was unanimous, as was the rejection by the deputies. The pictures were
not attached.
Since 1992 there has been a memorial to the 96
members of the Reichstag murdered by the National Socialists in front of
the south-west corner of the building.
Proclamation of the republic
On the afternoon of November 9, 1918,
the SPD faction leader Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the “Republic in
Germany” from the second west balcony to the left of the main portal.
There is a commemorative plaque on this spot today. Scheidemann's speech
has been handed down in different versions, the audio recording, which
can often be heard in documentaries, was only made later. In 1928 he
quoted himself in his memoirs:
"Workers and Soldiers! The four years
of war were terrible. Terrible were the sacrifices that the people had
to make in property and blood. The unfortunate war is over. The killing
is over. The consequences of the war, hardship and misery will weigh on
us for many years to come. Be united, faithful and dutiful! The old and
rotten, the monarchy, has collapsed. Long live the new! Long live the
German Republic!”
A few hours later, Karl Liebknecht proclaimed
the “Free Socialist Republic” (Soviet Republic) from the Berlin City
Palace.
Bloodbath in front of the Reichstag
An attempt by the
USPD and the KPD to mobilize the suffering masses of workers in Berlin
for a new attempt to establish council rule ended on January 13, 1920 in
the bloodbath at the Reichstag building.
Underground passage
During the conversion work after reunification, a corridor with heating
pipes was discovered. It once connected the Reichstag building with the
Reichstag President's Palace, which is now the seat of the German
Parliamentary Society. A part of the heating passage was cut out during
the conversion work and is now an isolated object in the pedestrian
underpass from the Reichstag to the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus.
Federal
eagle
In numerous drafts, Norman Foster proposed new solutions for
the design of the federal eagle in the plenary hall, which he
particularly wanted to be slimmer. However, the MPs opted for an
enlarged copy of the round shape that the sculptor Ludwig Gies had once
designed for the Bonn Parliament (ironic term: "fat hen"). However,
Foster took on the design of the back of the eagle, which in Berlin
hangs in front of a glass wall and can therefore be seen from both
sides, unlike before in Bonn. The new eagle, signed by Foster on the
back, is about a third larger than the old one at 58 m² and weighs 2.5
tons.
Flags on the towers
Three towers of the Reichstag
building are each flagged with the federal flag and one tower with the
European flag. The flags measure five by seven meters, are constantly
raised and are illuminated at night. In April 2022, Federal Interior
Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) approved the hoisting of the rainbow flag on
federal buildings for special occasions such as Christopher Street Day
2022. In June, the President of the Bundestag Bärbel Bas also announced
that the flags would be changed on Christopher Street Day. The flag with
the six colored stripes flew on the southwest tower of the Reichstag
building. Two more flags were raised in front of the east and west
portals.
Flag of unity
On the night of October 2nd to 3rd,
1990 at midnight, the "Flag of Unity" was hoisted on the Republic Square
to mark German unity. It still flies day and night (it is illuminated at
night) and measures six by ten meters .
Prayer room
There is a
prayer room on the first floor, which serves as a place for reflection
for the deputies.