Original subtitles

Berlin in the 1990s

Federal Chancellery Architect

In Bonn construction costs were triple the estimates.

Now the issue is 404 instead of 400 million.

It's a joke, but it's just not available.

Because the whole country is in a state of anxiety.

The sun is almost gone.

-Hello. -How's it going?

-Do we start with prefab pillars? -And the ceiling, the ''wave''.

The wall is extraordinarily massive.

Not much is done.

The damn mud.

Look at that. They have such huge cracks in them.

Just one more glazing on the bridge,

and that's the end of it.

That's the open courtyard.

-Want to see it outside? -Yes.

They should get rid of the grating so we get a clear idea of what's next.

Especially the new prefab pillars in the middle.

They must be positioned on site.

A damn nuisance.

The thing is finally gone and...

Have you compared the shade with the exposed concrete?

It was yellow in the factory.

It was a shitty beige in the factory because of the HPI lamps.

In the factory building.

So what? Today we had a planning session.

Haverkampf is harassing them. You see the result. A pain in the neck.

We participated in gigantic juries, which cut a federal government axis.

They said it was the symbol of federal commitment to Berlin.

This was the only design that broke with the historical pattern

to create an architectural bridging effect.

Now they drop the keystone and are left with three solitaires.

-Helmut Kohl wanted it that way. -That's unfair. He was for the works.

City Building Supervisor and Architect

You know that the Chancellor had a pronounced weakness for symbols.

For grand gestures.

That's why he accepted this town planning policy.

Yes, this is really a huge problem, not implementing the federal axis.

The concept is no longer visible.

The Citizens Forum idea is a place for people to congregate.

That is the big magnet.

Every secondary school pupil will be sent there.

And perhaps every primary school pupil.

The museum will focus on history.

Modern German history. It concerns us all.

Since the dissolution of the First German Empire,

when the whole confusion started.

You have a sovereign and a nation.

A people that believes it is German

on the basis of its own common history.

An exhibition mushrooming forth from the cellar...

-Who will champion such a concept? -The new Bundestag.

They won't last much longer.

A hurricane would help.

It would save us the trouble of tearing them down.

Developer and Architects on Site

That housed the Metropol theatre administration.

Now they are in the Admirals Palace. That isn't the issue.

The problem is they need a makeshift solution for their props.

-I see. -But the theatre is closed.

-Can it be rearranged? -A container would do.

Here we have the passageway

and the arcade which continues over here.

-This area still needs a strong... -Yes.

Here, this corner. Highlighting it is vital.

-That's not unimportant. -Right.

You needn't do that first,

but it's good to know what it was before.

Knowledge never hurt anyone.

At any rate, a prominent corner. A reading room is planned.

We focused on how the corner is used.

It's important to have such a room upstairs.

The railway tracks limit ground floor options.

The storey is 4.50 metres high.

We have a little more than that.

We need a 4.5 m floor height for the arcade below.

Architects are dreamers.

If you don't have dreams, you can't fulfil them.

Find me buyers for 200 luxury flats and you get the contract.

So that's how it works! Now we know.

We're still there to answer any questions you might have.

Hello. Yes, it's Bachmann speaking.

Developer and Foreman in Apartment Block

Tenants must move in or we can't start on the next phase.

I see.

-That's the dormer of... -The bath.

-That's the bedroom, right? -The bath is in the corner.

Terrific!

Down here in the front of the flat you have 82 square metres.

-82. -For two rooms.

That's what I call luxurious.

That's not something you can get for a song and a dance.

The top floor costs more.

I dined here once as a Party guest.

-A Politburo member invited me. -When?

-In 1983. -That's suspicious, Mr Nagel.

We, the Fundus Group, are proprietors of the buildings

on Friedrich St. including the newer one.

City Building Supervisor and Ex-Politician

We got it from the Finance Dept.

We bought several buildings at a time. All of Oranienburger St.

-You aren't planning covered malls. -Uncovered.

Nobody has suggested anything else until now.

What we're doing now in the exploratory phase

is finding intelligent town planning concepts

to make money with the company. That's where I come in.

And we have to incorporate the existing milieu.

Like the Hackesche Höfe on the other side. August St. is interesting.

It has a number of galleries. Small pubs have sprung up there.

So we have local colour. A fertile foundation.

Here's the crucial question.

Can you create a ''natural habitat''?

-What's that pre-war building? -The hall?

With the figures.

-See the entrance arch? -The old department store.

For a nominal rent we give the building to the Tacheles artists.

-What's its fate? -It will stay.

This is a major contribution to town planning implementation.

One of the last mega projects.

Architect and Chancellor

Mr Chancellor,

Mr Governing Mayor,

Mr and Mrs Pei,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I cordially welcome you to the groundbreaking ceremony

for the German Historical Museum here in the middle of Berlin.

Now I would ask you to show the video

of the new building.

Karl Marx Allee, Ex-Stalin Allee Est. 1949 ff.

My dear City Building Councillor!

We are now in a sector which is known to informed planners and architects

as a new construction area of the late 1960s.

An example of modern urban development.

Borough Building Councillor and State Secretary

In fact this was all medieval here.

We don't want to demolish the post-war buildings.

We want to try to restore the old ground plan.

It's a question of upgrading East German modernism,

and merging the 1960s with historical sites.

We are not debating that this was the old urban core.

The issue is how to handle modernist East German architecture.

How to improve an urban-planned neighbourhood.

The first in central East Berlin.

We see it as part of history. An understandable part.

The town centre was destroyed.

It is part of post-war reconstruction.

So we aim to complement what's there.

Adapt town planning to existing construction.

That won't work. Not if you envision pavilions. Like them.

New, functional designs.

Any attempt to add a chapter to the history of East Germany

is out of step with the times.

Let's add something new.

We must finance street narrowing and upgrade that block of flats.

-That's our idea. -It won't enhance flats.

Building an additional row of shops takes away people's frontage.

You're talking ''tenement housing''.

You fret over East German modernism more than the quality of urban living.

I'm starting with my Dutch Embassy

because it shows the correlation to your project next door.

Architect and Non-Commercial Clients

It's unique because the Dutch decided

on an embassy here and not in the West.

Initially we were afraid that we would be forced to adhere

to the current Berlin Dogma of the intact built-up block.

Borough authorities in Mitte enabled us to build a facility

with a certain freestanding touch.

-What Berlin Dogma? -Perimeter block construction.

As a culmination and end-all. Our composition is a new approach.

We tried to overcome the dreariness of Berlin ''tight-quarters'' construction.

We are striving to create open spaces to break up the confining ''compound''.

We want to give access to daylight at every point of the property.

You mean the Berlin Dogma of the 1990s boom.

Many other dogmas existed in the past, but nobody pays attention any more.

The other dogmas are aspects of our environment.

Part and parcel of our work.

The bright side of town planning is the shroud of old dogmas.

Right after the Wall fell

we saw widespread debate and doubt if we could fit it all in a block grid.

Advocates of the traditional structure

said Berlin is a low-rise city

and shouldn't have buildings with facades higher than 23 m.

Other people said we had a golden opportunity

to give Berlin a brand new look.

Architect and City Building Supervisor

A bold experiment as an attempt

to give the city more structural coherence.

A totally new urban constellation.

Both of these concepts are far-fetched schemes.

It wasn't long before we developed the idea

of keeping the city knee high,

with tall, dense components at Potsdamer and Alexander Platz.

As two focal points for functions that have no place in our briar patch.

We aimed to elevate the potential of these two squares

with clusters of skyscrapers.

Sony Center Architect and Clients

It was September 14, 1991

when I made the first sketch of the Sony Center.

It already outlined the form and vision of the forum

as a type of urban space at the dawn of the 21st century.

The international competition decided in our favour six years ago.

At that time my bid stated:

''We believe that critical reconstruction is insufficient alone.

We require new forms,

spatial rearrangement, and visionary engineering.''

Meanwhile, a Few Miles Away...

We praise the Lord and His power, His mercy shown every hour.

For the sweat we perspired, The fatigue when we were tired,

May the heavenly liquid flow From Thy barrel here below.

May the lord of this house and soil Enjoy the fruits of honest toil.

I'd like to add my two cents.

I'm delighted that today's topping-off ceremony

is a party for the builders.

That is rarely the case with Berlin events of this kind.

Berlin topping-off festivities usually serve a different purpose.

To give politicians more air time.

Here we are celebrating in the traditional manner.

Craftsmen are well represented. A few old tenants are here.

A Few Nights Later...

Great and gracious God, we thank Thee for Thy presence.

We ask Thee to bless this project. The foundation stone laid today.

Protect those who will work on this site.

Almighty God, we ask Thy blessing for this symbolic stone.

May it remind us today and future generations

of the foundation on which we build our hopes.

Now we have the ceremony of putting records into the time capsule.

Neues Kranzlereck blueprints,

building permits, a set of coins,

and the newspapers published in Berlin on this memorable day.

The capsule will be sealed by soldering

and lowered into the foundation stone.

They've been trying all afternoon.

Crane 3 up the street, Crane 4 down.

The pump is here. Where does it go?

Foreman and Concrete Layers at Foreign Ministry

Hey, Alex.

-Can you handle the glass blocks?

Crane 3, come in.

-How much longer do you need?

Two Blocks Away at Gendarmenmarkt

They built it at the end of my studies.

I knew it as a building site.

New KudammEck Architect

Werner Düttman built it. He had his fingers in every pie.

His brainchild was a high-rise mall, a one-stop vertical shopping district.

Stores from bottom to top. No daylight inside.

A pitch-black cavern that never saw the light of day commercially.

Only the two lowest levels were rented before it went bankrupt.

One of Berlin's construction tycoons, Jovi, built it.

Grothe told me it cost 170 million to erect it in the first place.

He paid 17 million at auction.

Owner of the Old and New Building

He left the top floors vacant and made money with advertising.

More rent for signs than shops.

-I was here recently. -Me too.

It's a narrow segment.

-The colours match. -Not bad.

But I must say I like the darker shade better than the lighter.

The dark, top-middle part?

It goes better with the windows and the metal strips.

It's the only logical alternative.

However, the middle window strips are absolutely impossible.

They take away the elegance.

They make a job centre out of an eight-star hotel.

Former Building Contractor

I took an early out. I gave up my career as the boss

of my own construction company.

One of the largest here in Berlin at its peak.

A flourishing enterprise.

Many colleagues told me

I was crazy to quit in the 1990s when business was booming.

But we only have so many years to live.

What's the sense of becoming the richest man in the cemetery?

All the managers I know with large-scale operations have health problems.

No wonder. Each project is a forced march.

Pariser Platz is the hottest topic among German architecture critics.

It was demolished later.

State Secretary and Architects on Site

It came down after the Wall went up. The Adlon was still there.

One fragment wasn't levelled after the fall of the Wall.

The Academy of Arts.

The Berlin government agreed at once to restore the square.

Reconstruction of the spatial configuration.

Town planners and legislators devised a strict code

unlike in the rest of Berlin.

Redevelopment is oriented

on the final condition before World War II.

The Late Modernist style of the 1920s.

The way it looked back then.

New structures are designed as tall as the Brandenburg Gate.

They get the height of the palaces that stood here.

Pariser Platz is back in place. What can I say?

I could say this or that is ugly.

Or that something could be better.

Basically, it has been restored.

The overall composition is now what it formerly was.

And that's fine.

I don't want to restore the palace to make it a home fit for a Kaiser.

The idea is to restore the palace as a piece of architecture.

What it houses is another story. That's not important.

Berlin City Palace 1950

Same Site 1998 East German Palace of the Republic

I disagree completely.

I think we should knock it down and leave the space vacant a while.

To get a feel for the emptiness created

by the destruction of the old Prussian palace.

This is third-class architecture, at best.

The location is too important

to maintain an eyesore for sentimental reasons.

The Old Museum, the palace,

the oversized cathedral.

A superb area geometrically and spatially.

Architect and State Secretary

-We must recover the spaciousness. -I certainly won't argue with that.

In my opinion, the main problem is

that policymakers have locked horns.

It's ''palace'' versus ''palace''. Restoration versus status quo.

We can't overcome this impasse.

The odds are insurmountable.

A peak we'll never climb. We don't have the energy.

What we can do is deal with the sites.

We need more courage.

Where was Palace Square? I always ask people that.

-Over there. -In front.

Why can't we restore the square? As a shape.

-Plus a monument. -Yes, a monument.

With a fountain, for instance. Then we'd have a site.

At least we agree that the dimensions of the old palace must be recreated.

It was once a lovely urban space.

-Nobody questions that. -Schultes does.

He wants something baroque. You can't take that seriously.

Architect With His Plaster Model

It started with the Palace Square.

It expanded and developed gradually in the direction of the canal.

The old Palace Square provided excellent urban spaces.

As the Hohenzollern style began to make its mark,

as the palace became Prussian and Wilhelminian,

all that remained was this bulky monolith

which occupied and dominated the whole location.

It overshadowed all else, leaving spatial remnants.

Our main criticism concerning this zone is not palace reconstruction.

A palace is fine.

We address the impact of the palace as an edifice.

Recreating a wasteland that existed for centuries.

Building a worthless site. A heart of wind and backyards.

Foreman and Iron Layers at Hausvogtei Square

The wall that goes across here

bends inward by 20 centimetres.

My ceiling is bulging.

That's right. A crack going up and misalignment mean the rods must be shorter.

If you lay the irons in here.

Exactly.

We have to trim the bottom. We can't cut off the hooks.

The rods have to hang somehow.

At Potsdamer Platz

Underwater Construction Workers

-Yes.

-Lower the ''shaker''.

3 Weeks Later

3 Months Later

2 Years Later

DaimlerChrysler Real Estate Building A1 Architect

Can we pour a little water on it?

A larger grain size would be better.

We'll make it 32.

That would be much more expensive.

Managing Director, DaimlerChrysler Real Estate

-Have you been one level higher? -Yes.

-How is it? -A good job.

We need terrazzo practice.

The air duct is 3 x 3 metres.

-We put it as far back as we could. -The terrace up there...

-I don't know. -It's not good.

I'll get Westphal to try to give you two metres.

Please do that.

As we were saying the other day, there's a gorgeous view from here.

The scaffolding still blocks the view.

Are they working or is it too cold today?

They're putting it up fast.

I'm always amazed at the excellent quality

of the prefabricated elements.

If masons had done it the old way it wouldn't be that perfect.

We had a meeting yesterday.

The consultants bug us with misgivings.

Sony Center Architect

I put my foot down.

Said they'd gone too far.

I didn't come all this way to get pushed around here.

Send a fax to Chicago. To Murphy / Jahn.

Nobody here knows how to coordinate. Not one mole who can find his hole.

I have to do it all.

Don't let Chicago do it. Okay?

The railing problem really upset me.

Suddenly a different kind was delivered.

Potsdamer Platz Master Planner

-Got the keys? -Open up.

Grand Opening Potsdamer Platz

Years Earlier

< Where we see a chain of events

< It is so strong

Jewish Museum

The Longest Building Site

The session is scheduled for , I believe.

Lehrter Central Station Architects

All fixed up again?

-It's intact now. -Over and over.

He put it together.

He is in a position to do it so precisely that we get the vault shape.

-The advantage is... -Noble.

-It looks noble as hell. -Very noble.

A full-scale model has been proposed.

We submitted an estimate of 800,000 deutschmarks.

-For a model? -Life-size.

-For 800,000? -The ceiling.

-A whole train platform as a model? -Ceiling, walls, a cross-section.

The vault and the exterior wall and platform surface

as a model to show to the German Railway.

You prepared for this as if you were competing

with other architects.

We've been wheeling plans down halls all year.

We want to get Mr Lepper to give his okay.

He wants us to go down from 170 to 100 million.

Quite a cut!

I said we'd manage if he cut out all the trimmings.

Mr Sommer attended a session on nodes in Berlin.

And on timeframes.

He told them if they kept twiddling their thumbs

they'd be building in 2015.

And he's right. Now about the shop facades.

We had a look at Potsdamer Platz. It opened last weekend.

The shopping mall.

It's uglier than Leipzig's.

Chaos strikes again.

That inclines us to opt for a shell made entirely of glass.

The thing that makes a mall like in Leipzig

or Potsdamer Platz a hodgepodge is not the advertising

but diverse materials and lighting.

Different shapes and forms.

One chain has a cosy cabin, the next a Black Forest.

Under the Tunnel Segment

Reichstag Dome 1999

Remodelling Architect with Clients

Mr President, Ladies, Gentlemen and Colleagues,

we have finally lived to see it.

The reunified German Parliament comes home.

''For the German People'' is the Reichstag inscription.

It again obliges us, members of the Bundestag.

In the Psalms of the people of Israel we read:

Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

It is in vain that you rise up early

and go late to rest,

eating the bread of anxious toil

for he gives to his beloved sheep.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come.

Thy Will be done

on Earth as it is Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive our trespassers.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the Kingdom,

and the Power,

and the Glory forever.

Amen.

May Almighty God grant you His blessing and salvation.

May He strengthen your sense of responsibility

and help you to abide by His commandments

so that nothing will happen against His will.

May He guide your footsteps on the path of peace,

of freedom and righteousness

so you will do only good

and lead the way to an era of love.

I realise Berliners lost all of what they saw as a beautiful city.

The wish of two Berlin generations to have a complete city once again

is a reaction to living for 50 years in a war-torn cityscape.

The next generation will gripe.

They'll start wailing, ''Who dreamed this up?''

-No open spaces. -Built up tight like in the 19th century.

Academy of Arts Remodelling Architects

This was Speer's command centre.

I hoped I'd never enter such a dump again!

Monument preservationists demanded

it be kept in its present state.

Back then these were fine exhibition spaces.

Compared to the other facilities.

But the wide frieze is peculiar, isn't it?

-It's the maintenance area. -All fine and good, but...

-Let's go over to get a good look. -Let them do what they like.

We have to be extremely careful not to succumb to fetishism.

This is the Snow White Coffin.

That's not right at all.

It's sagging from one side to the other. You can't reconstruct it.

It's no point of interest as an engineering feat.

-It's just an old relic. -Because of its historic location.

The only thing left apart from the Brandenburg Gate.

There's nothing we can do.

What do we do with such an element?

If it is used, the platforms and cuts will be a total mess.

The best thing to do is to avoid the whole thing.

I can't bear to look at this place.

Imagine how it will look with the wrap-around glass.

The tower will stand as a compact mass

and can serve a purpose as a connecting link.

-When did Speer build these rooms? -The tower was built in 1905-1906.

-And this addition here? -After 1938.

In 1937 Hitler gave him title to the property.

-That's Speer's tract? -Yes.

The superstructure over the tract depriving it of sunlight.

This former Nazi tract was furnished for the draughtsmen who worked here.

This is the section we'd eliminate in order to build a skylight.

This was all superimposed on the original structure.

What did they do in here? Drafting or designing?

Schelkes worked here. You know him.

-He can't still be alive. -Yes, he is.

He wanted me to make a speech for his 90th birthday.

How nice! What did you say?

I told his story at the home for the aged.

The seduction of a generation.

That was moving, heavy.

And Schelkes was able to draw a ground plan of all this from memory.

Who worked where, the model studio.

Huge models extended through the row of showrooms.

They were always brought here for final inspection.

The top brass, or Hitler himself, made corrections to the plans.

The historical significance is staggering.

A strange, multi-layered place.

That's the way it is!