Meaning. Form. Dissonance
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| Free admission |
| Ground Floor, Hall 2 |
| History and Architecture of the Site |
The Humboldt Forum has long stood—and continues to stand—at the center of numerous debates. Since the earliest ideas and planning phases, its purpose and the aesthetics of its architecture have been subject to negotiation and dispute. As multifaceted as the discourses surrounding it, so too is the building itself: from the outside, a partially reconstructed Baroque façade; from the inside, a highly modern structure, a year-round cultural venue, and a public urban space at the heart of Berlin. Undeniably, it is an architecture that, in all its contradictions, invites engagement and reflection: on the one hand, a partial reconstruction of a former royal palace, evoking a past monarchy and its symbols of power; on the other, a public, democratic, and internationally oriented cultural institution, a contemporary building permanently inscribed with modern artworks that recall colonialism, reflect on the Palast der Republik, and convey messages of coexistence.
For three years now, the Humboldt Forum has been a place used daily by countless visitors. Throughout the year, they encounter a diverse cultural programme that connects them to one another and to the wider world. It is now the visitors themselves who shape the space and help define the significance of the building through their experiences.
The formal completion of the Humboldt Forum’s construction provides the occasion to bring together those who have shaped it: sculptors, contemporary artists, architects, urban planners, sustainability experts, historians, curators, cultural specialists, and staff. The public is warmly invited to engage in direct conversation with these experts on equal footing.
The roundtable discussions will take place with roughly the same participants at 12:30 pm and 4:00 pm in Hall 2. Access is via the Grand Foyer. Each session lasts 90 minutes, with one table change midway. Visitors are free to choose which tables to join and are encouraged to participate in the conversations. Most discussions will be held in German. Admission is free.
All roundtable discussions will be held in German – except for the conversation at Table 1 between Hartmut Dorgerloh and Larry Bonćhaka at 12:30 pm, which will be conducted in English.
Introduced by: General Director Hartmut Dorgerloh and Anke Schnabel, Department for the History of the Site.
Roundtable Discussions
General Director Hartmut Dorgerloh and representatives of the Schlossaneignung initiative on contradictions as a source of energy for the programme.
12:30 pm (in English): Larry Bonćhaka, artist and participant in the competition organized by the Schlossaneignung initiative, in conversation with Hartmut Dorgerloh
4:00 pm: Philipp Oswalt, architect and architectural theorist, co-initiator of the Schlossaneignung initiative, in conversation with Hartmut Dorgerloh
Even after the completion of construction, the Humboldt Forum — its façade, its collections, and its programming — will remain a subject of critical discussion.
Philipp Oswalt is one of the 30 initiators of the Schlossaneignung initiative. The group seeks to draw attention to the repressed historical traces preceding 1700 and following 1918, and has issued a call for artistic interventions on the building’s façade.
The Ghanaian artist Larry Bonćhaka designed 32 oversized replicas of a West African doll for the balustrade and created a new inscription for the band beneath the dome.
with the artists Christiane Dellbrügge, Ralf de Moll, and Tim Trantenroth
The architecture of the Humboldt Forum is not only a reconstruction project and a venue for collections and programming. It also features seven site-specific artworks, with an eighth soon to be added to the building’s façade. These works are to be understood as commentaries on the history of the site and the architecture of the building. The artist duo Dellbrügge & de Moll created the frieze titled “The Architects” in the Small Foyer. Tim Trantenroth contributed the mural “Untitled” in one of the stairwells — his interpretation of the façade of the Palast der Republik.
with Anne Kühne, Senate Department for Urban Development, Capital City Office, and Ellen Kallert, bbz landscape architects
The Humboldt Forum comprises not only the building with its partially reconstructed façades, but also forecourts in all four cardinal directions and the terrace facing the Spree. As visitors from Berlin and around the world increasingly embrace and use the site, the green design of the surrounding outdoor spaces will continue to evolve in the coming years.
Architect Franco Stella on Italian Modernism and Its Users
with architects Franco Stella and Sigurd Hauer, FSP
The Grand Foyer as an agora or a theatre, the Schlüterhof as a piazza: In his design for the Humboldt Forum, Italian architect Franco Stella combined the partial reconstruction of the palace façades with choreographed urban spaces for a new city quarter, expressed in his own architectural language.
with stonemasons Valerie Otte and Rebecca Lomfeld
Before a figure adorns a building, it goes through many stages: from the initial idea to a drawing to a clay model — but what comes next? What do sculptors do differently today compared to 300 years ago? And how long will the sandstone figures endure the elements of wind and weather?
with Ada Kösler and Steffen Werner on sandstone figures for Portal 5
What is Baroque, in essence? Is there such a thing as a 21st-century Baroque? What kind of attitude is expressed by figures that appear baroque without being depictions or allegories? Who can stand between heaven and earth, dance along the balustrades, and bridge air and stone?
Thomas Herrmann, Consulting Engineer
Sustainable and energy-efficient construction is becoming increasingly important. From the very beginning, the planning of the Humboldt Forum incorporated the latest findings in the field. In 2021, Berlin’s largest geothermal system was put into operation. Over the four years since the opening, energy consumption has been continuously optimized — and in the future, solar rooftops will contribute to energy generation.
Hanno Hochmuth, Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam
The site on the Spree Island is one of the most layered and complex in all of Berlin. But how can this history be made visible within a new building? The architecture of the Humboldt Forum evokes the historical Berlin Palace in monumental form — yet how does one address what is absent, such as the Palast der Republik? This is precisely what the four permanent exhibitions and the accompanying programme on the history of the site seek to explore.
Discussants
Larry Bonćhaka (b. 1994) is a Ghanaian multimedia artist whose work engages with questions of identity, material culture, community, and coexistence. His two- and three-dimensional works reflect on everyday processes of production and meaning-making. He studied at the Kwame Nkrumah University in Kumasi and recently completed his studies at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Bonćhaka is a co-founder of the collectives ASAFO Black and Commune 6×3. In 2022, he participated in a research project as part of DOCUMENTA 15 with Commune 6×3 and blaxTARLINES.
Christiane Dellbrügge und Ralf de Moll have been working together since 1984. Over the years, they have realized numerous joint projects and exhibitions and have received awards and fellowships both in Germany and abroad. Their move to Berlin in 1988 marked the beginning of their deep involvement in the art scene — an engagement that has ranged from publishing an art magazine to curating the project space of the Deutscher Künstlerbund, to conducting research on artist migration, designing a settlement for an aging artist community, and investigating the state studio of Nazi sculptor Arno Breker. These research-based inquiries culminate in exhibitions, multi-channel video works, public interventions, and publications. As visiting professors at the Berlin University of the Arts, they taught courses on the relationship between body and space.
Among their architecture-related works are DIE ARCHITEKTEN at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin and the planned KANZLERBUNGALOW for the extension of the Federal Chancellery. These projects reflect their ongoing interest in exploring and critically reflecting on the interconnections between architecture, society, and urban identity.
Hartmut Dorgerloh is a German art historian and heritage conservationist. Since June 1, 2018, he has served as General Director of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.
Following German reunification, Dorgerloh joined the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the newly re-established state of Brandenburg at the beginning of 1991. There, he headed the department for heritage preservation, which also served as the state’s supreme heritage authority. During this time, he was responsible for drafting and implementing Brandenburg’s first monument protection law — one of the earliest such laws in the former East German states. From 1997 to 1999, his duties included overseeing the Foundation for Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg (SPSG) and chairing its advisory commission.
In 1999, Dorgerloh was appointed founding commissioner for the House of Brandenburg-Prussian History (HBPG) in Potsdam on behalf of the state of Brandenburg. He curated its opening exhibition, “Milestones – A Journey of Discovery through Brandenburg-Prussia,” as part of the bicentennial project Prussia 2001. From August 1, 2002, to May 31, 2018, he served as Director General of the SPSG.
During his tenure, the SPSG presented a number of landmark exhibitions under his leadership, including “Miss Prussia 2010. Three Exhibitions for the Queen” (Luise), “Friederisiko” marking the 300th birthday of Frederick II of Prussia in 2012, “FRAUENSACHE. How Brandenburg Became Prussia” in 2015, and “Pückler. Babelsberg – The Green Prince and the Empress” in 2017.
Dorgerloh has held an honorary professorship at Humboldt University in Berlin since 2004 and has taught at the University of Bern and the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam.
Since 1993: Architect
From 1997 to 2023: Project Manager and Associate at the architecture firm Hilmer & Sattler und Albrecht
From 2009 to 2020: Project lead for interior planning within the project consortium Franco Stella Architetto, Hilmer & Sattler und Albrecht Architekten, and Detlef Krug Baumanagement Berlin
Since 2023: Head of the Planning Department at bmb Generalplanungsgesellschaft Berlin
Thomas Herrmann is a certified engineer in building services and an energy consultant. Until 2024, he served as Head of Facility Management at the Humboldt Forum Foundation in the Berlin Palace.
Dr. Hanno Hochmuth, born in 1977 in East Berlin, is a historian at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF) and teaches Public History at Freie Universität Berlin. His publications include Berlin. Das Rom der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin 2024), Stadtgeschichte als Zeitgeschichte. Berlin im 20. Jahrhundert (edited with Paul Nolte, Göttingen 2019), and Kiezgeschichte. Friedrichshain und Kreuzberg im geteilten Berlin (Göttingen 2017).
Head of Office
Certified Landscape Architect (Dipl.-Ing.)
Since 2020, lecturer at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences (BHT) and member of competition juries
2012, registered with the Berlin Chamber of Architects as a landscape architect
Since 2010, head of office at bbz landscape architects
With the firm since 2007
Studied landscape architecture at the Technical University of Berlin (Germany) and Wageningen University (Netherlands)
Ada Kösler is an independent sculptor and painter based in Berlin. She studied classical portrait painting in Florence, Italy, and has worked on the reconstruction of figures for the Berlin Palace, the Potsdam City Palace, and various other buildings in Potsdam’s city center.
Her work focuses on classical figurative sculpture and painting.
Since 2017, Anne Kühne’s core responsibility has been project management at the Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing, within Division II for Urban Development and Projects. In this role, she has been significantly involved in the planning and construction of measures within the urban development project “Capital City Berlin – Government Quarter.”
From 2010 to 2017, she worked as a project manager for urban development projects at the planning office Uta Schneider in Dresden. In addition to classic land-use planning in and around Dresden, she developed urban planning concepts and studies as well as public space competition designs.
Her academic background includes a Master of Science in Heritage Conservation and Urban Development, completed in 2014 at the Technical University of Dresden, and a Master of Arts in Architecture from the Dresden University of Applied Sciences, obtained in 2010.
Rebecca Lomfeld is a sculptor and lecturer based in Berlin. She studied and worked in Germany, Greece, and Scotland. Her work explores human figures that emerge block-like from the stone, linger in states of free fall or suspension, or appear as disembodied heads engaging directly with the viewer. Since 2011, she has been teaching sculpture and drawing in Berlin.
In 2023, she designed two balustrade figures for the Humboldt Forum in Berlin (Bacchus and a female figure above the corner cartouche) and realized them at full scale in sandstone together with Valerie Otte and Nuray Koschowski.
Philipp Oswalt became politically active at an early age, engaging with the citizens’ initiative against the West Runway expansion, the peace movement, and the Green Party, for which he served as board member and press spokesperson in Frankfurt from 1982 to 1984. While studying architecture at the Technical University of Berlin and the Berlin University of the Arts from 1984 to 1988, he was also involved with the independent radio station Freies Dreyeckland in Freiburg.
His early professional years were shaped by his editorial work at the architecture magazine Arch+ (1988–1994), followed by positions at the renowned architecture firms OMA (Rem Koolhaas) and MVRDV. In 1998, he founded his own practice, with which he won, among other projects, the competition for the redesign of the Ravensbrück Memorial. He gained international recognition through the project Shrinking Cities (2002–2008), commissioned by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Valerie Otte is a German sculptor who has received numerous awards for her work, which has been exhibited both nationally and in the United Kingdom. Inspired by the search for inner balance, her sculptures explore the fragile equilibrium of the human condition. Her figures reveal vulnerability, yet at the same time radiate calm, confidence, and inner strength.
Her works begin as finely modeled compositions in clay before taking their final form in cast bronze. Otte’s artistic language is both introspective and powerful — an invitation to engage with one’s own emotional depth.
Architect Prof. Franco Stella won the competition for the reconstruction of the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace in 2008. Since 1990, he has been teaching at the University of Genoa. He also runs an architectural practice based in Vicenza.
Tim Trantenroth initially studied under Ulrich Erben at the Art Academy in Münster and later at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where he graduated in 1996 as a master student of Jan Dibbets. During his studies, he received a scholarship at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris and participated in the NRW state graduate scholarship programme with the project “silencer.”
In the years following his graduation, he worked as a freelance artist and spent extended periods abroad, including a year in New York. Teaching appointments took him to Leibniz University Hannover, the Berlin University of the Arts, and ultimately to a professorship at the University of Fine Arts in Essen.
Alongside his independent artistic practice, for which he has received several awards, he has realized numerous public art projects since 2006. In 2017, he was awarded first prize for a mural design at the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.
Trained in the sculpture workshop of Jürgen Klimes in Berlin-Weißensee.
Created numerous reproductions based on original models for palaces and gardens in Berlin, Potsdam, and Dresden.
Has worked for many years on the reconstruction and stone implementation of the Berlin Palace façade.