Capital planning Berlin
The term capital planning in Berlin can be used to summarize the various plans, uses and concepts that have arisen in the history of Berlin as the German capital over the course of time with regard to the capital city function of this city.
Residence city of the electors and kings
Berlin's first capital city functions have grown organically. The change of the Brandenburg electors to Prussian kings brought an evolutionary expansion of the function of Berlin from the princely court of the Renaissance to the capital of a major European power of the 19th century.
Buildings such as the Berlin City Palace on the Spree Island (built from the middle of the 16th century instead of a castle in the same place) date back to this period. From 1699 the castle was brought into the well-known baroque form by Andreas Schlüter .
The Federal Council meets today in the rebuilt Prussian mansion , while the Berlin House of Representatives has taken its new seat in the neighboring Prussian House of Representatives .
The boulevard Unter den Linden with the Brandenburg Gate as the western end is of symbolic importance at this time, when the victorious Napoleon I solemnly entered the city through the gate. The gate receives further symbolism from the events around the Quadriga .
On the boulevard Unter den Linden or in the immediate vicinity there were important representative buildings: the armory , the royal opera, the crown prince's palace and the royal stables. At the eastern end were the City Palace , Berlin Cathedral , Lustgarten and Museum Island.
Capital planning in the empire
The Prussian government buildings on Wilhelmstrasse were also used for imperial tasks. A solution only had to be found for the newly created body of the Reichstag . Until the completion of the Reichstag building, the Reichstag met under cramped conditions in the rooms of the Royal Prussian Porcelain Manufactory in Leipziger Strasse , at the same place where the building was to be erected after the move to the Spreebogen, which would subsequently become the Prussian mansion , the Prussian Council of State, the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and now the Federal Council should accommodate.
The Reichstag building was erected in the vicinity of the western end of the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Spreebogen. The Adlon luxury hotel also found its place on Unter den Linden.
Capital planning in the Weimar Republic
The Reichstag building was used unchanged, as was the adjoining Reichstag presidential palace . The city palace was used as a museum in the absence of Kaiser and was used by numerous other tenants, such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society , the Psychological Institute of the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin and the Emergency Association of German Science .
For Reich President Friedrich Ebert , the Reich President's Palace was found in Wilhelmstrasse.
The Prussian State Council took over the premises of the now obsolete Prussian manor house
There were already plans in the Weimar Republic to create a government district in the Spreebogen in the direct vicinity of the Reichstag. Albert Speer would take up these plans again in the Nazi sense.
Capital planning of the Nazi dictatorship
- Construction of the New Reich Chancellery
- Reich Ministry of Aviation
- Reichsbank building
Further examples of the expansion of the Reich capital Berlin in the Nazi style are the Olympic Stadium and Tempelhof Airport .
- World capital Germania
- The planning took place in the Bendler Block on July 20, 1944. Some of the conspirators were also executed there.
- People's Court
World War I and Allied Features
During the Second World War , the Berlin City Palace was badly damaged, but could still be used as a venue. The Allied Control Council for Germany was located in the Supreme Court building in Berlin-Schöneberg.
The Allied Commandantura for Berlin was based in Berlin-Dahlem. Every law of the Federal Republic that was to apply in Berlin had to contain a Berlin clause and, after approval by the Allied Commandantura, be passed by the Berlin House of Representatives without a substantive vote as a Berlin law.
- Headquarters of the SMAD in Karlshorst
- War criminals prison in Spandau
Capital planning of the GDR
At the beginning of the division of Germany, the situation of the government organs of the GDR in the old imperial capital served as a source of legitimation and justification for an all-German claim of the "Pankow government". Many of the government buildings of the German Empire were in the Soviet sector of the divided city, but were often badly damaged by the effects of war. The badly damaged New Reich Chancellery was blown up.
The Berlin City Palace was also blown up from September 7th to December 30th, 1950 at the behest of Walter Ulbricht .
As the official residence of the President of the GDR was Schönhausen Palace used.
The German People's Council met in the Reich Aviation Ministry, which soon constituted the Provisional People's Chamber. The building on the sector boundary was later used as the house of the ministries .
The oversized Soviet embassy was built in the Stalinist variant of classicism with elements of Berlin classicism of the early 19th century on Unter den Linden.
As Berlin, the capital of the GDR , the eastern part of the divided city should both meet the representational needs of the socialist state and express sovereignty and equality with the West German state.
Palast der Republik : The Schlossplatz, renamed Marx-Engels-Platz, served as a parade and parade ground for propaganda events.
The Central Committee of the SED took its seat in the former Reichsbank building near Marx-Engels-Platz / Schlossplatz.
With regard to the GDR, the preference for the capital with scarce goods in the planned economy can certainly be mentioned. In the early days of the GDR this corresponded to the urban and architectural features of Berlin with prestige objects such as the houses on Stalinallee. In later times, this line was continued with "luxury prefabricated buildings", which were intended to demonstrate exemplary socialist living.
Capital planning after reunification
The Foreign Office resides in the former Reichsbank building, which also housed the Central Committee of the SED.
The Federal Ministry of Finance has its seat in the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus , the former office of the Treuhandanstalt , former house of the ministries of the GDR , provisional Volkskammer and Göring's Reich Aviation Ministry .
See also
literature
- C. Borgelt, K. Jost: Architectural Guide Federal Buildings Berlin , Stadtwandel Verlag, 2000
- P. Meuser: Schloßplatz I - From the State Council building to the Federal Chancellery , Quintessenz Verlag, 1999
- Berlin and its buildings, Berlin 1991
- MW Guerra: Capital United Fatherland: Planning and Politics between Bonn and Berlin , Verlag Bauwesen, Berlin 1999