Grußwort
Regula Lüscher Senatsbaudirektorin anlässlich der
Austellungseröffnung „Das Neue Berlin“ Helsinki, 3.9. 2009
Es gilt das gesprochene Wort
Greeting
Ambassador Grolig, Mr. Rajajärvi,
Mr. Mäntimäkki,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am very pleased to be able to present our architecture exhibition here in Helsinki on the occasion of the seminar on urban development.
About the exhibition
The exhibition "The New Berlin" presents a selection of important urban development and architectural projects that were realised in our reunified city in the last 15 years.
It starts with the city centre. This is the area in which the destruction of the war, the urban development measures of the post-war period, and of course the construction of the Berlin Wall have left the most striking traces and waste land. However, destruction – as painful as it may be – also opens up new opportunities for urban renewal, innovation, new momentum and international Senatsverwaltung für Stadtentwicklung
contemporary architecture. The buildings of Berlin’s government district, the buildings at Potsdamer Platz, Leipziger Platz and Pariser Platz, as well as a large number of individual projects – such as the library of Humboldt University, the library of Berlin’s Free University and the city’s new main train station (Hauptbahnhof) in close proximity to the German parliament building – bear witness to these changes.
The exhibition is arranged according to themes. One of these deals with the buildings that are linked to Berlin regaining its status as the German capital. These buildings include not only the Reichstag and the other parliamentary buildings, but also the many interesting new embassies and representative offices of Germany’s federal states. The new embassy buildings in particular have greatly enriched Berlin with exceptional examples of international architecture.
Another thematic focus relates to such architectural ensembles as Potsdamer Platz and Leipziger Platz. They straddle the border which ran through the divided city until 1989.
Based on the principle of "critical reconstruction", which was put into practice with the help of the "Planwerk Innenstadt" (inner city planning concept), the city’s historical pre-war layout has been revived in many places. The result of this process is an urban structure that strengthens and promotes the city centre as a place to live and work and that has helped to prevent suburbanisation from the very start. The exhibition focuses mainly on the Friedrichstadt area to illustrate Berlin’s approach to dealing with the historical Wilhelminian urban districts.
The idea of the “Planwerk Innenstadt” emphasised the importance of a high level of coherence in the city’s architectural language. Using a selection of buildings constructed in recent years, the exhibition showcases the high architectural quality resulting from this approach. It includes prominent examples, such as the hotel buildings of the Beisheim Centre at Potsdamer Platz, and urban ensembles of residential and commercial buildings at
Leipziger Platz and around Friedrichstrasse station. In the last few years, Berlin’s city centre has seen building projects on a total area of approximately 600,000 square metres, with approximately 1.8 million square metres of gross floor space, including 4,000 new residential units.
After long and very controversial debates, a new centre worthy of Germany’s capital city will be created at Schlossplatz, the place of Berlin’s beginnings. The Humboldtforum, as it will be called, will be a cosmos of non-European culture and science, housed in a new building boasting the same dimensions and the reconstructed façade (the pre-defined critera in an international architectural competition) of the former Hohenzollern city palace.
Together with Museum Island – in close proximity to Schlossplatz – the Humboldtforum will give an additional boost to culture and tourism in this area. An important issue for the "mixed-use city" is the provision of residential housing in the city centre. Our exhibition shows the townhouses at Friedrichswerder as examples of such buildings.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, construction activities focused very much on what used to be East Berlin. However, the city’s former western part, too, was subject to change and renewal, which this exhibition also reflects by showing some individual projects from that area.
Berlin is constantly modernising itself: the multi-purpose hall built by the Anschutz Entertainment Group, for example – a 500-million euro investment – underlines the new and transformed demands of the future. Next to this hall, on the premises of the old postal train station, the Post AG postal company has begun development work for a new urban district.
To round all this off, the exhibition also features infrastructure projects, such as bridges, train stations, schools and the new international airport, which will have a major impact on and promote the development of Berlin’s entire south-eastern region.
Previous places of exhibition
There is great interest in Berlin’s architecture and building culture. This exhibition was already shown in Brussels on the occasion of the German Presidency of the European Union. Last year we presented it in Madrid, and we are now preparing the exhibition to travel to Montevideo in Uruguay.
Our commitment to building culture
The euphoria of the building boom since the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago made it a particular challenge for urban development policy to uphold our commitment to high-quality architecture and to enforce our understanding of building culture in the face of high pressure coming from investment interests. Holding competitions for public planning and building tasks has a long tradition in Berlin. But private investors need to be persuaded of the advantages of high-quality planning processes in the spirit of good building culture as well. This is not always an easy task. The Director of Urban Development is responsible for design and planning expertises, a plethora of competition and selection procedures, but also for co-operative planning workshops – all with the aim of singling out the best possible design within the context of a transparent award procedure.
Since August 2008, Berlin has had an advisory council for urban design, the Berliner Baukollegium. This council advises the Director of Urban Development on matters of project design and strategic decisions concerning building projects that have outstanding significance for the city as a whole.
Further bodies and instruments have been created in order to ensure the quality of building culture in Berlin, for example an advisory council working on lighting projects, a plan regulating advertising in public spaces, and an ordinance on urban design in the historical city centre.
These are but a few of the instruments and measures currently applied in Berlin.
The examples presented in this exhibition document the positive results of this process and our struggle for building quality. We hope that they will serve as best practice examples to encourage others, to set standards, and in doing so make their own contribution to enhancing building culture and architecture. We were very pleased to accept your friendly invitation because we in Berlin believe that it is important to show the fruits of our labour, not only at home, but also to an international audience.
Future prospects
History goes on: the recent past has brought many new developments to Berlin. This exhibition has room to grow, and it will incorporate these changes. New aspects of developing urban structures and buildings will come to the fore in the next few years. The global issue of climate protection, for example, will change the face of our city in many different ways.
We are not only here to present something to you, but we would very much like to engage in a lively exchange of ideas. This exhibition and the symposium with its lectures and discussions, as well as the many informal conversations should provide us with ample opportunity to do so. I am looking forward to discussing the topics presented here and I would like to thank everyone who contributed to making this exhibition possible.
My special thanks go to the city of Helsinki, to Mr. Heikki Mäntimäki and to Mr. Rajajärvi, as well as to Ms. Paula Mäki. Thank you.
