Band of covenant

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The band of the federal government (view along the Federal Chancellery towards the Paul-Löbe-Haus )

The band of the federal government is an arrangement of buildings that runs in the government district of Berlin north of the Reichstag building across the Spreebogen on the edge of the Spreebogenpark and represents the urban concept of the reorganization of the government district.

structure

Eastern part of the volume: Paul-Löbe-Haus (center) and Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus (left), in the background the dome of the Reichstag building
Band of the federal government with crossing the Spree

The approximately 900 meter long ribbon includes (from west to east) the Chancellor Park on the right bank of the Spree , the Federal Chancellery opposite on the left bank of the Spree, the Paul-Löbe-Haus , the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus (again on the right bank of the Spree) and in addition, the unrealized citizens' forum between the Chancellery and the Paul-Löbe-Haus, where instead there is an open space with a street. From the air, all the buildings belonging to it appear like a massive white bar that lies across the arch of the Spree and crosses the Spree twice. The impression of the connection is reinforced by the bridges over the Spree between the buildings of the band.

The individual elements

(from west to east)

Originally it was planned to extend the line, crossing the Spree a third time, to the Friedrichstrasse station , but this was not realized for cost reasons and because the station had to be converted beforehand. However, the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus is currently being extended by two courtyards to the east and its main entrance is being relocated to Luisenstrasse . The extension was originally supposed to be completed in mid-2015. After considerable delays, the completion date will only be limited to the period up to 2021.

The structural implementation of the Citizens' Forum will finally be dispensed with due to the amendment of the development plan in 2018, instead the road connection, which is initially provisional there, will be permanently established.

draft

The row of buildings represents an overall architectural concept that was created in 1992 by the Berlin architects Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank - who also designed the Federal Chancellery. With the design, they finally won the architecture competition to redesign the Spreebogen as a government district. The individual designs for the Paul-Löbe- and Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus come from Stephan Braunfels . The original design by Schultes and Frank also provided for a structural connection between the Federal Chancellery and the Paul-Löbe-Haus under the name Bürgerforum and was intended to connect the buildings of the legislative and executive state authority through a public space with numerous cafes, galleries and shops. It was also planned to continue the tape eastward beyond the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus in the direction of the Friedrichstrasse station. Both options were officially discarded due to funding difficulties. With the rejection by the then Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl , the Citizens' Forum did not have very many at the time, but it had an all the more influential opponent of a realization, who preferred a solitary building with the Chancellery .

The construction work began in February 1997 with the groundbreaking ceremony for the Federal Chancellery and ended for the time being with the completion of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus in October 2003. For the extension building, the residential block along Luisenstrasse had to be demolished.

Symbolism and criticism

The ribbon can be understood as a symbolic bridge between the formerly separate halves of the city, as the Berlin Wall ran exactly along the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus.

Further symbolic value should also be achieved by the fact that the Chancellery as government headquarters does not compete with the parliament building in architectural terms, but is integrated into the band of federal buildings, and the band thus the government (represented by the Chancellery), the legislature (the parliament , represented by the office building of the Bundestag) and the sovereign (the people, represented by the citizens' forum) symbolically brings together. However, this was only partially achieved, as the lack of a citizens' forum means that the Federal Chancellery and the Paul Löbe House are facing each other like two monoliths and the Chancellery no longer grows together with the large-scale concept as planned.

In Berlin architecture , as represented by Axel Schultes, according to the British social historian J. Caborn, "architectural elements were used that were frowned upon as 'non-democratic' in Bonn and avoided in architecture". According to Caborn, the fact that it is not rated as “non-democracy” in the Berlin republic is primarily due to a “new historical construction” in which “the strategies of the syncrisis and the breaking of the dichotomy 'democratic - not democratic'” are applied either to neutralize 'nondemocratic' or to give it a different meaning. "

The absence of the citizens' forum and in particular the inadequate discussion about the abandonment of the underlying idea is clearly criticized in the professional world.

literature

  • Hagen Eying, Alexander Kluy, Gina Siegel (editor): Democracy as a client. Federal buildings in Berlin from 1991 to 2000 . Ed .: Federal Ministry for Transport, Building and Housing. 1st edition. Junius Verlag, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-88506-290-9 .
  • Joannah Caborn: Creeping Turnaround - Discourses of Nation and Memory in the Constitution of the Berlin Republic. Unrast, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-89771-739-5 , chapter: The state architecture in Bonn and Berlin. Pp. 155-211.
  • Klaus von Beyme : Capital planning from Bonn to Berlin. In: Wilhelm Hofmann (Hrsg.): City as a space for experience in politics. Contributions to the cultural construction of urban politics. Lit, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-643-10734-3 , pp. 13-33.

Web links

Commons : Band des Bundes  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c “Low point of the culture of urban planning” in Berlin. In: Berliner Morgenpost . May 7, 2018, accessed January 11, 2019 .
  2. ^ Extension building: Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus (MELH). (PDF; 112 kB) (No longer available online.) In: Krebs und Kiefer. Archived from the original on October 6, 2015 ; Retrieved November 25, 2012 (presentation). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kuk.de
  3. ^ Architecture of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-House. From: bundestag.de , accessed on August 18, 2013
  4. The next botched construction site Now the Bundestag also has its BER. In: Krebs und Kiefer. Retrieved May 23, 2017 .
  5. Rolf Lautenschläger: The whistling of heaven. In: the daily newspaper , February 1, 2001
  6. a b Caborn, see literature, page 196
  7. See also Axel Schultes: I want a place of balance. The decision: where the chancellor will reside in the 21st century . In: FAZ , June 29, 1995.

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 12 ″  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 19 ″  E