Palace as Loot?
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| Admission: 5 EUR, reduced 2,50 EUR |
| Ticket: Please book your ticket in advance online or at the box office in the Foyer. |
| Suitable for: 16 years and older |
| Which languages: German |
| Venue: Mechanical Arena in the Foyer |
| Part of: SITE SPECIFICS |
| Belongs to: Blown Away: The Palace of the Republic |
In retrospect it seems reunified Berlin was a paradise of opportunity and freedom after the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the same time, alliances were forged and strings were pulled – also in relation to the Palace of the Republic. Together with historian Hanno Hochmuth, moderator Marion Brasch outlines a time that has already become history. Theatre director Amelie Deuflhard and urban planner Barbara Hoidn recall what they experienced, discussed and helped to shape at the time.
How was that again, after the GDR Council of Ministers closed the Palace of the Republic on 19 September 1990 due to acute asbestos contamination? On 3 October 1990, the Palace became the property of the Federal Republic of Germany. Shortly afterwards, the Federal Ministry of Finance began to sell the technical equipment and furnishings or to pass on them for free. It was not until 1997 that a conservation documentation programme began. Before its demolition was completed in 2008, the palace was a ruin, a skater’s hangout, a focus of dispute and a backdrop of controversies, a ‘people’s palace’ (“Volkspalast“) and an experimental ground. Who were the shakers & makers, who made the rules and shaped the narratives? What were the visions and illusions? Why was it exactly like this – and not quite different?
Participants
Amelie Deuflhard, since 2007 artistic director of Kampnagel – International Centre for Fine Arts, 2000 to 2003 artistic director of Berlin’s Sophiensaele, 20001/02 chairwoman of the ZwischenPalastNutzung association, 2003/04 co-director with Matthias Lilienthal and Philipp Oswalt of the Volkspalast project.
Dr Hanno Hochmuth, born 1977 in East Berlin, is a historian at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF) and teaches public history at the Free University of Berlin. Publications include Berlin. Das Rom der Zeitgeschichte (Berlin 2024); Stadtgeschichte als Zeitgeschichte. Berlin im 20. Jahrhundert (ed. with Paul Nolte, Göttingen 2019); Kiezgeschichte. Friedrichshain und Kreuzberg im geteilten Berlin (Göttingen 2017).
Born in East Berlin in 1961. After graduating from high school, the trained typesetter worked in a print shop, for various publishing houses, for the GDR Composers’ Association and for radio. Her debut novel Ab jetzt ist Ruhe was published in 2012 and was followed by three more novels and theatre works. At the Palace of the Republic theme days in October, she will be presenting the evening ‘Thomas Brasch – Bleiben will ich, wo ich nie gewesen bin‘ (‘Thomas Brasch – I want to stay where I have never been’) together with Albrecht Schuch on 5 October 2024 at 7 pm in Saal 1.
An independent architect and urban planner since 2001, she played a prominent and responsible role in the discussions surrounding the preservation of the Palace of the Republic in the 1990s. She prepared the various early procedures for the site as part of her work for the Berlin Senate, including the series of events ‘Schloß-Palast-Haus Vaterland’ (see also the publication of the same name in 1997 together with Barbara Jakubeit). These discussions also coincided with the relocation of the capital and the first appointment of a Commissioner for Culture and Media in the Chancellery, elevating the task to the status of a national debate. Her conclusion: the critical reconstruction of the city became the reconstruction of buildings and then of symbols.