-:Undertaker:-
03-08-2014, 01:07 PM
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11008289/Palace-where-Kaiser-Wilhelm-II-declared-the-First-World-War-is-to-be-rebuilt-100-years-later.html
Palace where Kaiser Wilhelm II declared the First World War is to be rebuilt, 100 years later
Building in the heart of Berlin to be reconstructed as Germany reaches deep into its past
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02994/KAISER-WILHELM_2994889b.jpg
Kaiser Wilhelm II
It was the building from which Kaiser Wilhelm II declared, to an adoring crowd, the beginning of the First World War. "I no longer recognise any parties or affiliations; today we are all German brothers and only German brothers," he proclaimed on that fateful day in August, 1914.
Since then the imperial palace on whose balcony the Kaiser stood 100 years ago this weekend has all but vanished - reduced to ruins by Allied bombing raids during the Second World War, and every last remnant demolished by East Germany's new communist rulers.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02994/PALACE_2994890c.jpg
The palace seen in a late 19th century postcard (ALAMY)
There will be no ceremonies or memorials in Germany this weekend to mark the centenary of a war most Germans would rather forget. But in the heart of Berlin, one of the most ambitious reconstructions ever attempted is now under way, to rebuild the vast baroque edifice that once dominated the centre of the capital city.
The German president, Joachim Gauck, laid the foundation stone for a €590 million reconstruction at a ceremony in June, and the concrete shell of the new building is already in place.
It is as if London tried to rebuild Henry VIII's palace at Whitehall, or Paris reconstructed Louis XIV's Tuileries. While the rest of Europe pauses to mark the anniversary of the war, Germany is trying to recreate its past, reaching back to a time before the country was shattered by two world wars and the divisions of the Cold War.
In 1914, as in 2014, Germany was the economic success story of Europe. It was an emerging world power, its rise driven by astonishingly fast industrialisation that had seen it quadruple its foreign trade in just 30 years, and overtake Britain in steel production.
Berlin was the showcase for all this new wealth, as Wilhelm ordered its transformation into a capital to rival London or Paris. New buildings went up everywhere, including the Berlin cathedral which Wilhelm had ordered to be as grand as St Peter's in Rome.
http://abload.de/img/p1040554p8pf4.jpg
Via Ludi from Skyscraper City forums (Berlin) - http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=178723&page=96
A few years earlier in 1905, a British expert called Berlin "a marvel of civic administration, the most modern and most perfectly organised city that there is".
At its heart was the Berlin City Palace, dating back to the 18th century, and was the seat of power. It was to the City Palace that thousands of German flocked night after night in the summer of 1914 as war drew closer, singing patriotic songs and hoping for a glimpse of the Kaiser.
But the palace's story would come to encapsulate that of Germany. The catastrophic decisions that led to the First World War brought the country's economic rise to an abrupt halt. When the Kaiser was forced to flee at the end of the war, the palace fell into disuse.
Allied air raids towards the end of the Second World War reduced it to smoking ruins. When Germany was divided and the Berlin Wall went up, what was left of the palace lay in the communist-controlled east, where the authorities deliberately set about wiping away its every last trace, as a symbol of hated class despotism. In its place they built their own modernist Palace of the Republic.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02994/ARTISANS_2994891c.jpg
Artisans move a silicon mould at the Schlossbauhuette studio where a team of sculptors are creating decorative elements for the facade of the Berliner Schloss city palace (GETTY IMAGES)
Now, as a reunified Germany emerges from the shadow of its past, the palace is returning. But the decision to rebuild it has been controversial. The timing of the project has nothing to do with this weekend's anniversary - it is a sign of how little interest most Germans have in the First World War that the building's significance as the site of the Kaiser's war speeches in this centenary year seems to have been overlooked.
But Berlin intellectuals argue the city should have built something new on the site, instead of looking back to the past, while former East Germans wanted to preserve the communist government's own palace - now itself demolished in turn to make way for the reconstruction.
The project is the life's work of Wilhelm von Boddien, a 72-year-old Hamburg businessman who says the idea first came to him in 1961, when he was sent into East Berlin aged 19 to report on the construction of the Berlin Wall for a student newspaper.
"I was expecting to see a great capital," Mr von Boddien told The Telegraph, "but I found myself in a demolished city. The whole city was gone, there were ruins everywhere. They had destroyed it to make a pure socialist city. I saw a pile of rubble and asked the people what used to be there. And they told me that was the palace."
Mr von Boddien became obsessed with the idea of recreating the City Palace and after German reunification in 1990 he saw his chance.
At first people scoffed at the tractor salesman from Hamburg who wanted to rebuild the Berlin City Palace, calling him the "Palace ghost". But Mr von Boddien persisted for decades, and finally persuaded Angela Merkel's government to commit to the project.
The additional cost of recreating the original facades will be met by private donations.
"The palace is the heart of baroque Berlin," Mr von Boddien said. "The rest of the buildings don't make sense without it."
I have posted this before, but having followed this project for a few years it is nice to see it being linked in with the First World War and the anniversary of that fateful conflict that we're approaching right now. There's been a lot of progress on it too.
But this is just great, I love it. You can really see the imperial Palace taking shape now in the picture i've added to the article from Skyscraper City. Wouldn't it be nice if we ignored modernists and self-hating intellectuals (as Germany has done) and rebuilt some of our finer buildings rather than just building ugly eyesores like that Olympics Tower, the Shard or the new Birmingham Library - all of which will look incredibly dated and ugly within 20 or so years?
And on a wider note and historical context, it is good to see Germany taking her rightful place again as a major nation. With a stronger pride in themselves than ever since WWII (see football) and a revival in their imperial architecture: it'd be nice to see this cross into the boundary of politics and see the Germans throw off the EU yolk which the French guilt-tripped them into because of war guilt.
ALSO - that Skyscraper City forum is very good for reading plans and watching projects in your local area/city or town if you're interested in that kind of stuff, I always use it to find out what is coming along next in Liverpool.
Thoughts?
Palace where Kaiser Wilhelm II declared the First World War is to be rebuilt, 100 years later
Building in the heart of Berlin to be reconstructed as Germany reaches deep into its past
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02994/KAISER-WILHELM_2994889b.jpg
Kaiser Wilhelm II
It was the building from which Kaiser Wilhelm II declared, to an adoring crowd, the beginning of the First World War. "I no longer recognise any parties or affiliations; today we are all German brothers and only German brothers," he proclaimed on that fateful day in August, 1914.
Since then the imperial palace on whose balcony the Kaiser stood 100 years ago this weekend has all but vanished - reduced to ruins by Allied bombing raids during the Second World War, and every last remnant demolished by East Germany's new communist rulers.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02994/PALACE_2994890c.jpg
The palace seen in a late 19th century postcard (ALAMY)
There will be no ceremonies or memorials in Germany this weekend to mark the centenary of a war most Germans would rather forget. But in the heart of Berlin, one of the most ambitious reconstructions ever attempted is now under way, to rebuild the vast baroque edifice that once dominated the centre of the capital city.
The German president, Joachim Gauck, laid the foundation stone for a €590 million reconstruction at a ceremony in June, and the concrete shell of the new building is already in place.
It is as if London tried to rebuild Henry VIII's palace at Whitehall, or Paris reconstructed Louis XIV's Tuileries. While the rest of Europe pauses to mark the anniversary of the war, Germany is trying to recreate its past, reaching back to a time before the country was shattered by two world wars and the divisions of the Cold War.
In 1914, as in 2014, Germany was the economic success story of Europe. It was an emerging world power, its rise driven by astonishingly fast industrialisation that had seen it quadruple its foreign trade in just 30 years, and overtake Britain in steel production.
Berlin was the showcase for all this new wealth, as Wilhelm ordered its transformation into a capital to rival London or Paris. New buildings went up everywhere, including the Berlin cathedral which Wilhelm had ordered to be as grand as St Peter's in Rome.
http://abload.de/img/p1040554p8pf4.jpg
Via Ludi from Skyscraper City forums (Berlin) - http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=178723&page=96
A few years earlier in 1905, a British expert called Berlin "a marvel of civic administration, the most modern and most perfectly organised city that there is".
At its heart was the Berlin City Palace, dating back to the 18th century, and was the seat of power. It was to the City Palace that thousands of German flocked night after night in the summer of 1914 as war drew closer, singing patriotic songs and hoping for a glimpse of the Kaiser.
But the palace's story would come to encapsulate that of Germany. The catastrophic decisions that led to the First World War brought the country's economic rise to an abrupt halt. When the Kaiser was forced to flee at the end of the war, the palace fell into disuse.
Allied air raids towards the end of the Second World War reduced it to smoking ruins. When Germany was divided and the Berlin Wall went up, what was left of the palace lay in the communist-controlled east, where the authorities deliberately set about wiping away its every last trace, as a symbol of hated class despotism. In its place they built their own modernist Palace of the Republic.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02994/ARTISANS_2994891c.jpg
Artisans move a silicon mould at the Schlossbauhuette studio where a team of sculptors are creating decorative elements for the facade of the Berliner Schloss city palace (GETTY IMAGES)
Now, as a reunified Germany emerges from the shadow of its past, the palace is returning. But the decision to rebuild it has been controversial. The timing of the project has nothing to do with this weekend's anniversary - it is a sign of how little interest most Germans have in the First World War that the building's significance as the site of the Kaiser's war speeches in this centenary year seems to have been overlooked.
But Berlin intellectuals argue the city should have built something new on the site, instead of looking back to the past, while former East Germans wanted to preserve the communist government's own palace - now itself demolished in turn to make way for the reconstruction.
The project is the life's work of Wilhelm von Boddien, a 72-year-old Hamburg businessman who says the idea first came to him in 1961, when he was sent into East Berlin aged 19 to report on the construction of the Berlin Wall for a student newspaper.
"I was expecting to see a great capital," Mr von Boddien told The Telegraph, "but I found myself in a demolished city. The whole city was gone, there were ruins everywhere. They had destroyed it to make a pure socialist city. I saw a pile of rubble and asked the people what used to be there. And they told me that was the palace."
Mr von Boddien became obsessed with the idea of recreating the City Palace and after German reunification in 1990 he saw his chance.
At first people scoffed at the tractor salesman from Hamburg who wanted to rebuild the Berlin City Palace, calling him the "Palace ghost". But Mr von Boddien persisted for decades, and finally persuaded Angela Merkel's government to commit to the project.
The additional cost of recreating the original facades will be met by private donations.
"The palace is the heart of baroque Berlin," Mr von Boddien said. "The rest of the buildings don't make sense without it."
I have posted this before, but having followed this project for a few years it is nice to see it being linked in with the First World War and the anniversary of that fateful conflict that we're approaching right now. There's been a lot of progress on it too.
But this is just great, I love it. You can really see the imperial Palace taking shape now in the picture i've added to the article from Skyscraper City. Wouldn't it be nice if we ignored modernists and self-hating intellectuals (as Germany has done) and rebuilt some of our finer buildings rather than just building ugly eyesores like that Olympics Tower, the Shard or the new Birmingham Library - all of which will look incredibly dated and ugly within 20 or so years?
And on a wider note and historical context, it is good to see Germany taking her rightful place again as a major nation. With a stronger pride in themselves than ever since WWII (see football) and a revival in their imperial architecture: it'd be nice to see this cross into the boundary of politics and see the Germans throw off the EU yolk which the French guilt-tripped them into because of war guilt.
ALSO - that Skyscraper City forum is very good for reading plans and watching projects in your local area/city or town if you're interested in that kind of stuff, I always use it to find out what is coming along next in Liverpool.
Thoughts?