Germany’s largest “cultural construction site”

Figure: Dreßler Bau

As-built condition of the Humboldt Forum last year

Figure: Dreßler Bau

Detailed view of the façade: the three-dimensional lettering was created by form liners

Figure: Dreßler Bau

Figure: Werner Hochrein

Explanatory sketches illustrating the precast element production process

Figure: Werner Hochrein

For 500 years, the palace of the German electors, kings and emperors had left its marks on the Berlin cityscape. After the Second World War, the then Deputy Minister President of the GDR, Walter Ulbricht, ordered the building, which was gutted by fire but otherwise structurally sound, to be blasted into pieces, thus creating the space for the Palace of the Republic, the “Home of the People”, which opened its doors as late as 1976.

Previously encircled by the wall, the East German people loved their “home” so much that the asbestos-ridden “palace box” was utterly and completely demolished to give way to the reconstruction of the historic palace following the related resolution adopted by the German Bundestag in 2002. Nowadays, the remaining “socialist” foundations of the former Palace of the Republic are “creaking” under the burden of the reconstructed palace. In 2008, Italian architect Prof. Franco Stella, from Vicenza, won the international design competition for the reconstruction of the historic center of Berlin.

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