Democracy in Berlin.

The reworked Reichstag in Berlin is a triumph of imagination and skill, raising issues as varied as the nature of cities and the representation of democracy, relationships between modernity and history, sustainability and scale.

For decades the Reichstag building sat there, dark and gloomy against the Wall(1): a hulk of stone, isolated far from the glittering shops and comfortable apartments of West Berlin by park and the huge wilting expanse of the Konigsplatz.(2) Inside, repairs had allowed Parliament(3) to sit but it rarely did.(4) It was hard to believe that such an isolated, ruined and ponderous place could ever possibly be a real focus of democratic political and national life again. Its shattered neo-Renaissance shell seemed to be an irrelevant epitome of the heavy, aggressive burgeoning of the newly unified German state in the late nineteenth century.

Yet, for all its stolidity, Paul Wallot's 1894 building(5) was for a while a symbol of a sort of liberty. Kaiser Wilhelm II hated it because it represented democracy (the haut bourgeois brand, but at least democracy), and he is reputed to have gone there only twice.(6) The inscription on the great pediment 'Dem Deutschen Volke' (To the German People) was, in a way, a criticism of imperial power.(7)

Destruction of the interior by fire in 1933 allowed the Nazis (who are supposed to have initiated the arson, though blamed it on the poor loony Dutch anarchist van der Lubbe) to close the whole place down - and with it democracy.(8) In 1945, the Russians regarded the capture of the building as the climactic moment of the whole titanic struggle, and the image of the heroic soldier planting the Red Flag on top of Wallot's shattered dome became one of the most potent icons of victory.

After the division of Germany following the War, the place was occasionally used by the West German government to establish that the island of West Berlin was still part of their area of influence, and the shell was given a jury-rig (a clumsy '60s interior to make it possible as a debating chamber and offices). It remained isolated, irrelevant and sinister. It was savagely cut from its matrix, the old centre of the city, because the division between Russian and Western sectors ran along the line of the eighteenth-century customs wall, and the Reichstag was just outside the boundary (the Kaiser was making a point). Its neighbour, Langhans' 1791 Brandenburg Gate, was on the other side.

All changed when Germany was reunited and the Wall came down. The Reichstag was suddenly in the middle of the city (instead of being on the edge of a political island). And it was to become, again, the focus of democratic debate after parliament decided (by a small majority) to move the capital of the reunited country from Bonn to Berlin.

Clearly, once that decision had been made, the Bundestag(9) had to move into the old Reichstag building,(10) and an international competition was held to see how to make the much tormented place into a symbol of modern democracy. Norman Foster won with a proposal to put a huge canopy over the whole building, generously extending its presence into the Platz der Republik(11) with a slender portico somewhat similar to Foster's Nimes mediatheque which was in design at roughly the same time.(12)

But a new masterplan for the area, the Spreebogen, by Axel Schultes,(13) necessitated a complete re-brief, and the design was radically changed. The old shell was to define the perimeter. As much as possible of Wallot's building was to be preserved. But, in place of his dome (which was purely decorative(14) and had no relation to the interior), Foster proposed a completely new and unprecedented device: a huge transparent hemisphere round the inside of which are interlocking helical ramps that can bring the citizens high up above the politicians to gaze out over the panorama of Berlin, and down into the chamber in which their elected representatives debate. It is a symbolic and practical manifestation of the people over their politicians, and a wonderfully dramatic gesture, for as you rise into the great luminous volume, gradually the whole of Berlin is revealed, while below (if you try hard) you can see the politicians at work, trying to rule the capital and the whole country that spreads out to the horizon in every direction.

To get up there, you have to go through the formal entry route. Wallot's great west steps are now used by politicians, officials and public alike, a proper relationship of electors, elected and their servants in a modern democracy.(15) You come into an awesomely huge toplit, tall thin narthex (mostly by Wallot, but with dramatic Foster sky luminance). Immediately in front is a glass wall which defines the grand entrance lobby, and beyond that is a further transparent partition which allows you to see straight into the chamber itself, where the President of the Bundestag sits under the great eagle, the symbol of the state from unification, through all the intervening regimes, until this version was symbolically moved from Bonn to Berlin, the new capital.(16)

Once inside the building, Bundestag Members can (in theory) stroll direct into the chamber. The rest of us have to choose whether to go up to one of the tribunes (balconies) in the chamber from which public and press overlook the activities of their elected representatives. Or we can go up by lift to the roof, perhaps take a snack in the restaurant, and start to stroll up the ramps.

In the middle of the dome is a fantastic object. A fountain of little mirrors erupts from the centre of the glass ceiling of the chamber. The glittering, curving inverted cone has many purposes. It reflects the light of the sky(17) down into the chamber, so that the Members of the Bundestag have a sense of what is happening outside and the place is luminously unclaustrophobic. At night, it can act in the opposite way, when very bright spotlights (what the architects call 'xenon guns') shine upwards onto it and the rays are projected more or less horizontally out over the city, as a rather Prussian reminder of the power of government. Even when the spotlights are not used, the whole dome glows when the chamber is in session, an advertisement to the populace that their mentors are toiling.

At the same time, the inverted cone acts as an essential part of the building's energy system. It is a chimney for hot air. Germany, Switzerland and Sweden (rich countries luckily unblessed with oil resources) have been in the forefront of energy conservation and the great symbolic building of German unity had to be an example of how a decent country can run itself without destroying the planet. As restored in the '60s, the Reichstag poured out 7000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The new system emits a mere 440 tonnes (quite a lot to be sure, but an enormous improvement).(18)

The huge, wild mirror device in the dome is the most obvious part of the process. Because it brings daylight down to the Chamber, the need for artificial lighting is reduced. And at the same time, it acts as a convection chimney in a scheme which draws in cool air low down to be heated by politicians then symbolically expelled through the dome.

But the energy system is a great deal more complex than appearance indicates. Like most of the rest of Berlin, the Reichstag sits over a huge lake, 300m below ground. This is used as a vast thermal fly-wheel in which July and August heat can be stored and recycled in the cold months. Extraordinarily, there is another aquifer,(19) rather less low down, in which coldness can be stored for summer use in radiant ceilings.(20) There are no currents in these mysterious subterranean seas, so energy does not (at least in theory) migrate sideways.(21)

Just as the new Reichstag draws on inherited (and amazingly sophisticated) systems of environmental control, it reflects on its own awesome history. Wallot's building was never in the first rank of nineteenth-century parliaments, and though Kaiser Bill hated it,(22) it turned out to be the almost definitive exemplar of Wilhelmine architecture - that pompous blend of neo Baroque and neo Renaissance which stamped its way over central Europe between 1871 and 1914.

Wilhelm II was not the only state leader to impose his will on the building. Helmut Kohl suddenly asked for more colour, and the architects changed what was proposed to be a gently muted palette of applied olive, burgundy and dark blue into a much more strident set of hues, which was organized in collaboration with the Dane, Per Arnoldi. The result is not entirely successful. Sometimes the colours are just too strong for the spaces, which in Wallot's building (for all its pomposity) sometimes had nobility and elegance. Now some of his smaller rooms are terribly overcooked: you are boiled in blue, or roasted in red. But the colours can be transient and made less strident with a few pots of paint. Kohl is no longer Chancellor and his successors may have less gross tastes.

What matters is the subtlety of relationships between old and new; the powerful but appropriately accessible nature of the Chamber itself; the openness of the building (both visually and metaphorically). In its new incarnation, the Reichstag wears the scars of history bravely. Though hated by some, the graffiti of Russian soldiers scrawled in 1945 are carefully preserved. Blasted remains of walls and openings are set against smooth new plaster. It embodies memory of terrible things, and yet with its transparency and multi-layered thoughtfulness, it offers hope, and shows how the country has overcome its long period of wilful (and understandable) cultural amnesia to set an example to the rest of the world.

1 Its site was just outside the demolished eighteenth-century customs wall, which defined the old centre, and turned out to be the dividing line between the Russian and the Western zones of a city divided between the four victorious powers.

2 Now Platz der Republik. It was a parade ground, like many other open spaces in eighteenth-century Berlin, then transformed into pleasure grounds by Lenne, the great Prussian landscape architect. See Taylor, Roland, Berlin and its History, Yale, New Haven and London, 1997, p166.

3 The Reichstag was set up by Bismarck to allow the bourgeoisie to have a (controllable) voice in the polity of the new Empire, which was itself a confederation of princely states under the King of Prussia, whom Bismarck engineered into the Emperor after the Franco-Prussian war. There was a huge statue of Bismarck immediately outside the Reichstag, it has been moved.

4 Before the Wall came down, it could not, for though the building was made usable, the Russians (one of the four powers that legally ruled Berlin from the end of the War to 1989) objected fiercely to the use of the building as the parliament of the Bundesrepublik (West Germany).

5 Between 1871 (the unification of Germany) and 1894, the Reichstag met in a converted royal porcelain factory. Wallot won the 1882 competition. It was the only major building of the little known Frankfurt architect.

6 He hated politicians too, and called it the Imperial Monkey House (Reichsaffenhaus) - see Ladd, Brian, The Ghosts of Berlin, University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 1997, p87.

7 The Emperor had objected violently to setting the motto on the building when it was opened, but he allowed it to be put there (cast from captured French guns) in the dark days of 1916.

8 Even though he may have agreed to the arson, Hitler apparently revered the building and, though he forced the Reichstag to meet elsewhere, he demanded that the hulk should be preserved.

9 Federal Parliament.

10 So leaving its just completed fine building by Behnisch (AR March 1993).

11 Which had, by this time, become a venue for rock concerts and other popular events. The building itself was wrapped in metallized fabric by Christo in 1995, bringing it back from limbo to civilized consciousness.

12 See AR July 1993

13 See AR January 1999.

14 The rotting frame was demolished in the '50s.

15 A noble ideal, but the Members do have a nearly as grand an entrance on the opposite side of the building (and another one to the north). The press has a separate south entrance.

16 Foster attempted to design a new version, but it was turned down by a committee of Members (though Foster was allowed to do the back side).

17 A mechanical shade, moved automatically, prevents sunlight shining down and blinding the Members. The device is a development of Foster's sun catcher at the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank (AR April 1986).

18 in 1883, the British engineer David Grove won the competition for the heating and ventilation system of Wallot's building with a system of huge air ducts which allow copious low velocity air flow into the chamber. They still do. 19 Underground lake.

20 In the hotter lake, warm water at its natural temperature of 20 [degrees] C is pumped up and then warmed by waste heat from other parts of the system to achieve a temperature of 70 [degrees] C, when it is put round the building and transferred to the spaces by various kinds of radiators. (The water is supposed to return to the lower underground lake at 20 [degrees] C.)

21 There are numerous other energy-conserving devices in the building, ranging from the manually and automatically controlled windows (which allow most of the spaces to have natural ventilation) to the power plant which is intended to be fuelled by renewable rape and palm oils. There are solar panels in the roof. The whole building is a power house for the surrounding government area, and it will feed energy to the government office blocks which are now finishing to the north (and to the new Chancellery - AR January 1999).

22 He (rightly) described it as the 'height of tastelessness'. Ladd op cit.

Architect

Foster and Partners, London

Design team

Norman Foster, David Nelson, Mark Sutcliffe, Mark Braun, Christian Hallmann, Ulrich Hamann, Dieter Muller, Ingo Pott

Structural engineers

Leonhardt Andra & Partner

Ove Arup Partnership

Schlaich Bergermann + Partner

Acoustics

Muller BBM Gmbh

IKP Ingenieur Buro Knothe and Prof Dr Georg Plenge

Mechanical and electrical engineers 

Kaiser Bautechnik Ingenieurgesellschaft

Kuehn Baur Partner

Fischer - Energie+Haustechnik

Amstein + Walthert

Planungsgruppe Karnasch-Hackstein

Lighting consultant

Claude Engle 

Photographs

All photographs are by Richard Bryant/Arcaid except no 10 by Dennis Gilbert, nos 2 and 8 by Nigel Young, no 5 by Rudi Meisel and no 7 from Reichstag archive