From Berliner Stadtschloss to

Humboldt-Box and Back Again:

Architecture in the Conditional
Remei Capdevila Werning
*
Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona
Abstract. This paper deals with the reconstruction of the former
Schloss of the Hohenzollern in downtown Berlin in relation to the
design and appearance of the Humboldt-Box, a temporary struc-
ture completed in 2011 which serves as information, exhibition and
fundraising center for the Schloss reconstruction. It has been said
that the Humboldt-Box is a deliberately awful modern building,
not only to draw attention to the millions of tourists who visit Berlin
every year, but to imply that the only adequate and possible option
for that site is that of reconstructing the palace with almost exactly
the same appearance that it had around 1900. This statement entails
a series of philosophical underlying assumptions that require thor-
ough examination. Specically, there are two sorts of arguments that
intertwine when justifying the Schloss reconstruction. The rst one
has to do with the aesthetic reasons provided in favor of a historical
reconstruction; the second one has to do with the implicit concep-
tion of reconstruction or restoration employed by the promoters of
the rebuilding of the Schloss. These two elements point to a con-
ception of architecture that I would like to call architecture in the
conditional: while one of the aims of the Humboldt-Box is to show
what could happen if the Schloss would not be built, the reconstruc-
tion seems to follow Eugne Viollet-le-Ducs conception of restora-
tion as to reinstate [a building] in a condition of completeness which
could never have existed at any given time. Both aesthetic and preser-
vationist arguments coincide in the conditional tense in which they
are formulated and this tense is articulated in both the Humboldt-
Box and the Schloss. Putting these aspects together to better un-
derstand the process of the reconstruction of the Schloss through
the Humboldt-Box and back to Schloss again will clarify what an ar-
*
Email: [email protected], [email protected]
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
chitecture in the conditional may be and shed light onto the rela-
tionships between a certain aesthetic appearance and the meanings
it conveys.
In the main exhibition hall at the Humboldt-Box, there is a model of
Franco Stellas design for the reconstruction of the former Schloss of the
Hohenzollern in downtown Berlin. This wooden model represents the
new palace at scale as it is supposed to look once built at the south of
the Museumsinsel, the island in the middle of the Spree river, a UNESCO
world heritage site with some of Berlins most signicant museums. In this
rendering, adjacent to the Schloss, and made out of a semi-transparent
plastic is the representation of the Humboldt-Box, a temporary struc-
ture completed in 2011 that hosts this very model and which serves as in-
formation, exhibition and fundraising center for the Schloss reconstruc-
tion. While examining this model, we asked a volunteer guide whether
the Humboldt-Box would remain after the Schloss had been rebuilt, as the
model seemed to indicate. Oh my God! No! he said, It would disrupt
the entire site. The Box is to attract visitors, and also to show what disas-
trous outcomes could happen if modern architects were allowed to build
whatever they wanted. Not by coincidence the slogan of the Humboldt-
Box is Berlins magnet to visitors on the Schlossplatz. This may seem
only an innocent anecdote, but the statement that the Humboldt-Box is
a deliberately awful modern building, not only to draw attention to the
millions of tourists who visit Berlin every year, but to imply that the only
adequate and possible option for that site is that of reconstructing the
palace with almost exactly the same appearance that it had around 1900,
entails a series of philosophical underlying assumptions that require thor-
ough examination.
There have been many discussions, debates, and confrontations on
whether the Berliner Schloss should be reconstructed.
1
My aim is not to
provide yet another voice to the debate (though I acknowledge right from
the beginning that I am against the project), but to examine two sorts of
arguments that intertwine when justifying the Schloss reconstruction and
that are closely related to the design and appearance of the Humboldt-Box.
1
See, for example, Boddien (2000), Ekici (2007), Flierl, Parzinger (2009).
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
The rst one has to do with the aesthetic reasons provided in favor of a
historical reconstruction; the second has to do with the implicit concep-
tion of reconstruction or restoration employed by the promoters of the
rebuilding of the Schloss. These two elements point to a conception of ar-
chitecture that I would like to call architecture in the conditional: while
one of the aims of the Humboldt-Box is to show what could happen if the
Schloss would not be built, as the guide told us, the reconstruction seems
to follow Eugne Viollet-le-Ducs conception of restoration, according to
which to restore a building is to reinstate it in a condition of complete-
ness which could never have existed at any given time. (Viollet-le-Duc, 1875:
9). Both aesthetic and preservationist arguments coincide in the condi-
tional tense in which they are formulated and precisely this tense is also
articulated in both the Humboldt-Box and the reconstruction project for
the Schloss.
The idea of reconstructing the former Schloss of the Hohenzollern,
i.e., the Prussian royal family but now called now called the Berliner Stadt-
schloss probably to erase any trace of monarchy in the current German
Republic came about at the beginning of the 1990s. The Schloss does
not date from a single period, but is rather an assemblage of several peri-
ods and styles. The architectural structure intended to be reconstructed
does not exactly correspond to the original, but leaves out certain parts,
such as a Gothic wing known as the Knigliche Hofapotheke, which was
an annex at the northern faade of the Schloss built in 1585 and served
as royal pharmacy for centuries, until its partial demolition in 1898.
2
It
also ignores the Renaissance faade to the East so that what is being re-
constructed is the appearance of the Schloss as constituted by its three
baroque faades (West, North and South), designed by Andreas Schlter
in 1702, an enhancement to its nal size by Johann Eosander von Gthe
shortly after, and a nal addition of an imposing dome in the mid 1800
hundreds. The Schloss was heavily bombed during World War II and de-
molished in 1950 to free up a central area in East Berlin. Only a part,
known as the Liebknecht balcony because Karl Liebknecht declared from
there the German Socialist Republic in 1918, was saved and inserted in
the faade of the Council of State building (Staatsratsgebude) just next
2
See Froschauer (2012).
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
to the Schloss esplanade. The area remained empty until the mid 1970s,
when part of the spot was occupied with the Palast der Republik (the for-
mer GDR Parliament and also cultural center or Volkshaus). In 1990 the
Palast was closed due to an asbestos contamination and, after removing
the toxic mineral, it was completely dismantled by the end of 2008, not
without great controversy and protests,
3
which run parallel to the debate
of reconstructing the Schloss.
After Germanys reunication in 1990, the Federal Government cre-
ated an international commission of experts called Berlins Historical Mit-
te (Mitte, literally Middle, is the neighborhood in the center of Berlin)
to establish a series of guidelines to further make political decisions on
what and how to build in Berlins historical downtown.
4
The main idea
that came out of this commission was to create a public space for culture,
communication and union of East and West in the city center, whose core
would be the Humboldt Forum, a global meeting space for culture, art, and
sciences which would reect the spiritual heritage of the Humboldt broth-
ers, Alexander and Wilhelm. Organizationally, the Forum is managed by a
cluster of public institutions (museums, university, library) and, of course,
private businesses. The Forum was allotted the same site that had been
occupied by the Schloss, and the commission of experts had to issue rec-
ommendations about the architectural structure that had to host the Fo-
rum. After considerable discussion, and without a unanimous decision,
the commission Berlins Historical Mitte recommended that any con-
struction should follow the shape and the orientation of the original build-
ing, i.e., the Schloss, so that it would have the same volume, and favored
the reconstruction of the three baroque faades on the north, west and
south sides of the new construction but, and this is important, without ex-
cluding other options.
5
However, due to the lobby of the promoters of the
Schloss, who began raising money for the reconstruction before any nal
decision was made, the Government slowly changed its position. This is
3
There is extensive literature about the demolishing of the Palast der Republik and
especially about demolishing the Palast in order to rebuild the Schloss. See, among oth-
ers: Butlar (2007), Caroll La (2010), Durn (2009), Ledan (2003), Neill (1997), Schug
(2007).
4
See: AAVV (2000) and AAVV (2002).
5
Flierl, Parzinger (2009, 60).
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
shown in the ocial resolutions regarding the Schloss from the years 2002,
2003, 2004 and 2007
6
, which evolve from relatively open-ended archi-
tectural guidelines to the obligation of reconstructing the three baroque
faades and the cupola. This caused the rules of the design competition
for the new building to be so strict that there was barely margin for creativ-
ity or to propose interesting projects, in fact, these conditions, together
with external pressures by the promoters of the reconstruction is what
provoked the resignation of the head of the jury, British architect David
Chippereld.
7
By the end of 2008, the jury ended up choosing the only
project that fullled the imposed requirements (and not the best one, even
by their own judgment), which was by Italian architect Franco Stella. In
words of Jean-Louis Cohen, member of the jury, Stellas project was the
object of a consensus strangely lacking in enthusiasm within a jury that was
almost astonished to get out of the impasse it was in (Flierl, Parzinger,
2009: 103).
While construction works now slowly begin and money is being raised
to nance this huge project (roughly 16 of the planned 80 million euros
have now been collected), the Humboldt Box, designed by the team of
Berlin architects KSV Krger Schuberth Vandreike, opened its doors on
June 29, 2011 (Vandreike, Schuberth, Krger, 2011). The Box is a ve-story
building with two terraces on the top oor and a total area of 3000 square
meters which host temporary exhibitions on the future contents of the
Forum, a gift shop, a restaurant, and areas to lease for private events.
The structure is built upon a foundation of steel pyles, which support
a primary cast-concrete bearing-wall structure. Enclosing this structure is
a steel frame which supports the enclosure made out of metal and fabric.
This steel frame is referred to as a skeleton by the architects, as though
it were the primary structure of the building, and as is articulated in the
exterior of the Box. However, this is not the case because the concrete
provides the primary structure. The main element of the exterior is re-
6
See (Anon., 2002), (Anon., 2003), (Anon., 2007).
7
In a lecture given at Columbia University on February 2, 2012, Chippereld said
that there had never been a real debate around the reconstruction of the Schloss, and
he accepted being in the Jury to provide another voice, but the whole process was so
politicized that he quit. The idea that there should have been more debate around the
project is also in (Chippereld, 2007).
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
placeable fabric, so that the Box can be used as an advertising billboard in
order to raise funds for the reconstruction. In fact, the advertising com-
pany Megaposter GmbH is the company responsible for planning, erect-
ing, renancing and managing of the project Humboldt-Box and the one
that commissioned the building from the architects KSV.
The Box is planned as a viewing platform for the Schloss construction
site, although paradoxically the main windows face the Lustgarten at the
north and not the construction site to the south. Even more, most of the
tiny windows facing the construction works are covered, so that, apart
from the cafeteria at the top, there remains only one opening to see what
is happening on the site. Perhaps for this reason Hermann Parzinger, the
president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which is in charge
of the contents of the Humboldt Forum, prefers to say that the capital
[Berlin] can now nally see what it itself looks like from the Humboldt
Forum (Kilb, 2010) thus omitting the central function of showing the
construction works and also the not very pleasant view of the Humboldt
Box from other architectural structures, such as Schinkels Altes Museum.
The Humboldt Box was inspired by a similar structure erected from
1995 to 2001 at the Postdamer Platz, the Visitor Box on Stilts, which An-
dreas Huyssen characterizes as follows: More image box than info box,
this space oers the ultimate paradigm of the many Schaustellen (viewing
and spectacle sites) that the city mounted in the summer of 1996 at its ma-
jor Baustellen (construction sites) (Huyssen, 1997: 71). The same applies
to the Humboldt Box, maybe with the addition that the Humboldt Box is
also a sort of fund-raising machine in all its aspects: there is an entrance
fee, donation boxes, shop, cafeteria, renting of interior spaces and renting
of the exterior surfaces for advertising banners.
Aesthetically, the Box has been described as an ugly block, with the
charm of a dumpster, a crime against architecture, a UFO and even
Kotzbrocken, literally a chunk of vomit. (Dpa., 2011; Srs., Dpa. 2011;
Heinke, 2011). These insulting expressions only dier in degree with the
harsh comment by the volunteer guide that I mentioned at the beginning.
In fact, the aesthetic opposition between Humboldt-Box and Schloss, put
simply, the rst one is ugly and second one beautiful, is similar to the one
used by the promoters of the historical reconstruction: the Schloss is con-
trasted to the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. This building is con-
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
sidered adequate in its purpose but not in its form nor in what it stands
for:
What is to be built here? The enhanced Palast der Republik? A sort
of Centre Pompidou as evidence for the creative potential of modern
architecture?
Or just only the historical castle - and if built, should its atnonce-
precious interior rooms be included? Or combination of castle and
Palast, for example, or of Palast and Centre Pompidou? (Boddien,
Engel, 2002:13)
And elsewhere:
It [the Humboldt Forum] will build on the idea behind the Pompi-
dou Centre and develop it for the needs and demands of a globalised
world in the 21st century. (Flierl, Parzinger, 2009: 23)
Even more, in one of the promotional publications that the supporters for
the reconstruction regularly publish there is a photomontage to show how
the Pompidou would look in the Schloss spot. However, this photomon-
tage is very tendentiously done, for the Centre Pompidou is shown oc-
cupying the entire island without respecting the streets and space around
and, to the contrary, the Schloss is represented proportionally. While the
aim is certainly to dismiss it as a foolish idea that will make people donate
money in order avoid a the placement there of a machine made out of
bars, pipes and ventilators, (Adam, 2011:82) one could probably make a
reasonable argument in favor of putting the Pompidou, or a similar struc-
ture, in the middle of Berlin.
In the abovementioned defense for a historical reconstruction, Wil-
helm von Boddien a businessman from Hamburg who is the head of the
Frderverein Berliner Schloss e.V. and one of the most devoted promoters of
the reconstruction tendentiously combines the aesthetic and architec-
tural styles of the Palast der Republik and the Centre Pompidou, perhaps
to kill two birds with one stone and disregard both of them as equally pos-
sible and adequate options for the center of the Museumsinsel. As with
the Humboldt Box, a sophisticated, awful, and modern aesthetic is put in
contrast to the simple, beautiful, and traditional aesthetic of the Schloss
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
(just only the historical castle), thus precluding from the get-go any other
non-historicist construction and also the possibility of leaving the spot
empty. Another important point made by Boddien is that a building like
the Pompidou Centre would become evidence of the creative potential
of modern architecture, as though this should be necessarily a bad thing
and as though all newly constructed buildings should become evidence of
such kind of creativity. By stigmatizing any contemporary alternative, the
historical reconstruction seems to be the only possibility for the needs
and demands of a globalised world in the 21st century. This is especially
clear in the conditions (again very tendentious) that Boddien establishes
for any building to be a good candidate for the Schloss spot:
Are there any examples of a modern building that, in lieu of its his-
toric precedent building, has put together again an old city ensemble
in a way that the individual building of this ensemble has regained
its original artistic-individual signicance, has restored the artfully
woven communication network among the other buildings and that
this modern building became also the qualitatively best of the en-
semble? (Boddien, Engel, 2000: 13)
I would say that the Pompidou Centre does exactly this and this might
be the reason that it is chosen as a counter-example. But supposing there
might not be actual instances of a modern building that fullls such char-
acteristics, this does not mean that it could not be built. There is a sim-
ilar example at a smaller scale very close to the Schloss site that proves
it: the Reichstag, the building that houses the German Parliament and
remodeled by British architect Sir Norman Foster, whose glass Dome cer-
tainly achieves Boddiens criteria. Moreover, it is doubtful that the re-
constructed Schloss will ever be the qualitatively best of the Ensemble
having Schinkels Altes Museum just in front of it. And third, there is no
reason why these imposed characteristics should be the only ones accept-
able (i.e., necessary and sucient) for any building to be designed in lieu of
the Schloss. The Humboldt Box seems thus not only to work as a magnet
to attract visitors, but to exemplify the worst a modern building could do
in the same site as the Schloss: it does not t with the context, it does not
bring together the surrounding buildings, it is not the best at all. All this
reinforces the arguments in favor of a historical reconstruction and not
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
the construction of a contemporary structure (or the never contemplated
possibility of leaving the space empty). Furthermore, if the Box is taken
to reproduce at miniature the future contents of the Humboldt Forum,
one might say that the purpose of developing the idea of the Pompidou
Centre (exhibition areas, a public library, and a center for events) cannot
be achieved in such a building. Thus it seems that Schloss and Box could
not be more dierent.
Nevertheless, despite their two opposite aesthetic features, Schloss
and Humboldt Box have a common element which can be drawn from
the implicit conception of reconstruction or restoration employed at the
Schloss and the justication to build the Box to show what disastrous out-
comes could happen if the Schloss were not to be recreated. This is a con-
ception of architecture that I have called architecture in the conditional:
while one of the aims of the Humboldt-Box is to show what could happen if
the Schloss would not be built, the reconstruction seems to follow Eugne
Viollet-le-Ducs conception of restoration as to reinstate [a building] in a
condition of completeness which could never have existed at any given time
(Viollet-le-Duc, 1875: 9). It is true that Viollet-le-Duc claims that [t]o re-
store a building is not to preserve it, to repair, or rebuild it (Viollet-le-Duc,
1875: 9), thus explicitly dierentiating restoring from rebuilding or recon-
structing; nevertheless, the idea of achieving a completion which could
never have existed at any given time is what fosters the reconstruction
of the Schloss. This is also the same tense that prompts the construction
of the Humboldt-Box, a conditional structure that anticipates a possible
unwanted design outcome and, by being built, reinforces the opposite aes-
thetic solution, one that, like the Humboldt-Box, had never existed before.
Both aesthetic and preservationist arguments coincide in the conditional
tense in which they are formulated, and this tense is articulated in both the
Humboldt-Box and the reconstruction project for the Schloss. Both build-
ings are prompted by the aim of freezing an instant of an imaginary time-
line: whereas the Humboldt-Box points toward a nonexistent near future,
the preservationist intentions behind the reconstruction of the Schloss
intend to go back to an unreal past.
So, even though the Humboldt-Box was built as a temporary structure
that recreates a modern aesthetic that deliberately clashes with the his-
toricist reconstruction of the Schloss, both buildings share the fact of be-
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
ing architectures in the conditional. The full size mock up of the Schloss,
built in 1993 with the aim that the idea of its reconstruction would gain
sympathy from the people, can also be considered a temporary structure
in the conditional. The mock up showed how the site would look, but in
a way that it had never looked before: not only because the surroundings
were dierent, but because it used a mirror that covered a faade of the
adjacent Palast der Republik to simulate the Schloss actual size. Shortly
after, the non-conditional and genuine Palast der Republik was being dis-
mantled and the Schloss had entered Berlins imaginary cityscape.
There is a clear nostalgic drive that underlies the reconstruction of the
Schloss, a sort of nostalgia that Svetlana Boym calls restorative nostalgia
and that shares with Viollet-le-Ducs conception of restoration the same
conditional tense which expresses the return to something that never ex-
isted nor could have existed (Boym, 2001). Boym distinguishes between
two sorts of nostalgia: restorative and reective. Whereas restorative nos-
talgia stresses nostos, i.e. the return home, and attempts a transhistori-
cal reconstruction of the lost home, [r]eective nostalgia thrives in algia,
the longing itself, and delays the homecoming-wistfully, ironically, desper-
ately (Boym, 2001: xviii). Restorative nostalgia (the one that concerns us
here), does not think of itself as nostalgia, but rather as truth and tradi-
tion. And, in a description most suitable here:
Restorative nostalgia manifests itself in total reconstructions of mo-
numents of the past, while reective nostalgia lingers on ruins, the
patina of time and history, in the dreams of another place and an-
other time. (Boym, 2001: 41)
Is it probably not a simple coincidence that the promoters of the restora-
tion of the Schloss are driven by this sort of restorative nostalgia to try to
bring back 19th century Berlin, the very 19th century when nostalgia be-
came institutionalized and for the rst time in history old monuments
were restored in their original image (Boym, 2001: 15). It is also in the
19th century when Viollet-le-Duc carries out his restoration projects and
writes his denition of restoration. We have thus a nineteenth-century
nostalgic drive to reconstruct a nineteenth-century Schloss, but, alas, in
the 21st century. And here is the last point I would like to make, because,
as Boym says:
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Remei Capdevila Werning Architecture in the Conditional
Nostalgia is not always about the past; it can he retrospective but
also prospective. Fantasies of the past determined by needs of the
present have a direct impact on realities of the future. (Boym, 2001:
xvi)
All these buildings that I have called architectures in the conditional, the
Humboldt Box, the Schloss and also its 1993 mock up faades, all of them
have the power to make a real impact, they are not only retrospective
but prospective. Through them, the events or the instants in the imag-
inary time-line that could happen if or that could have never happened
are provided a real size and site-specic structure in the present. They
become the junction between imaginary and actual time, so that which
could never have existed at any given time is suddenly existent. The nos-
talgia not for the past as it was, but for the past the way it could have
been. It is in this sense, it is this past perfect, the tense that articulates
Viollet-le-Ducs notion of restoration, that one strives to realize in the fu-
ture, as Boym says (Boym, 2001: 351). By determining one of the many
possible outcomes or xing the future, that is, by building the Humboldt
Box as though it were that which would occupy the Schlossplatz if no mea-
sures are taken, the rest of future options are precluded, so that resorting
to the past seems the only feasible option. The conditional and temporary
Humboldt Box brings about another transformation from a conditional
state to an actual one: the Schloss turned from that which could never
have existed into that which should always have existed and, ultimately,
it will turn into that which will exist. Nostalgia for a past that had never
existed makes its way through the present and future through architec-
tures in the conditional and, in their turn, architectures in the conditional
become actual and erase not only existing buildings, but existing pasts and
histories.
8
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8
This research has received nancial support from the Secretaria dUniversitats i
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