Palast der Republik

Overview

Overcoming through Reconstruction:
The commission of experts has made its decision, the Berlin city palace will be rebuilt. Yet the coffers are empty and the Palast der Republik is still standing in the middle of the former socialist capital city. Some of the special buildings of the GDR in the centre of Berlin are now either empty or are being redeveloped - such as the Haus des Lehrers on Alexanderplatz. The restaurant Moskau on the Karl-Marx Allee is also being renovated and the listed building will be open for a variety of events. Others, on the other hand such as the Forum Hotel or the TV tower, have still retained the use for which they were originally built.

Heike Ollertz has selected these and seven other special buildings of the DDR, and has made portraits of them. The result is a photographic overview of these very distinctive architectures and urban planning. The images of the buildings, their interior designs and the political murals, mirror the way in which parts of the built GDR is being treated today.

On the search for answers on the history of the GDR special buildings and the role they have played since the "Wende", Heike Ollertz, together with the film-maker Ann Muller ('aa film, Luxemburg') has conducted interviews. The conversations are accompanied by long shots of corridors, empty interiors and some of the wall mosaics which have been seriously neglected.

How to utilize Pet Architecture:
Studio Bow Wow have over the past years entered into the unloved and overlooked terrain of anonymous buildings and have investigated the da-me - "no-good" architectures which have resulted within a city where every square metre is put to maximum use. The nameless hybrid architectures of the city, which until now have not been accepted into architectural culture are unique, small in scale (hence also their definition as "pet architecture") and are buildings where practical issues are high, built directly for use, interdependent and an immediate response to the here and now. Studio Bow Wow have discovered and documented such buildings where a highly unusual ecology is packed into a single building, where a bicycle shop meets a snack-kiosk, meets a batting centre. The result of their investigations has led to a delight in the new possibilities for urban dwelling and new architectures that result from having observed, and sought inspiration from the unplanned, the individualistic and the highly idiosyncratic wealth of building that defy classification. In fact, they epitomize the undefinable, the immediate and are both a response and a legitimate counterweight to the over-definition within architectural discourse. The pet architectures and da¬me buildings also reflect the situation and value systems of Tokyo - a city where much has been left unseen in favour of the focus on sleek skyscrapers of the business districts and the financial centre.

Yoshiharu Tsukamot