New York Times berichtet kritisch über das Schlossprojekt

Am ersten Januar 2009 erschien unter dem Titel „Rebuilding a Palace May Become a Grand Blunder“  ein vernichtende Kritik an dem Vorhaben des Schlosswiederaufbaus  von Michael Kimmelman in der New York Times. Gleich zu Beginn bringt er das Probleme auf den Punkt:  „The saga of the Schloss, a cultural misadventure from the start, captures Berlin in a nutshell, as a city forever missing the point of itself.“

Im Verlauf des längeren Artikels erläutert Kimmelman – keineswegs ein Gegner jeglicher Rekonstruktion – die Fragwürdigkeit des Bauvorhabens aus architektonischer wie programmatischer Hinsicht. Unter anderem heisst es dort: „Did I mention that the original, 18th-century Stadtschloss, by Andreas Schlüter and Johann Friedrich Eosander von Göthe, was a hulking, unlovable pile? Even the emperors didn’t want to live there. Proponents of reconstruction argue a new Schloss would restore an urban complex that includes great buildings by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Berlin’s most important Neoclassical architect. But this makes less than no sense, not least because Berlin decided during the 19th century to construct an appalling wedding cake of a cathedral next to, and all out of proportion with, Schinkel’s landmark Altes Museum, which is across the street from the Schloss.

Sorry, Humboldt Forum. Ingeborg Junge-Reyer, the Berlin senator in charge of urban development, told me the other morning, with a perfectly straight face, „It is decisive that it is called the Humboldt Forum, not the Schloss, because the name Humboldt symbolizes knowledge, openness to other cultures, and to culture, and that fits Germany.“ Wilhelm von Humboldt, the great philosopher, educator and friend of Goethe and Schiller, and his brother Alexander von Humboldt, the naturalist, like Schinkel evoke the glory days of Berlin’s Enlightenment. Meanwhile a German official advocating the Schloss got in hot water recently by suggesting that the forum would include studios open to the public for artists from Africa, Asia and other exotic places, bringing to mind the old Hottentot and freak show displays. The official later insisted this wasn’t what he meant.“

Hier der ganze Text.

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