Berlin's Indoor Mountain of Art and Protest

New York Times By GEETA DAYAL

BERLIN, Aug. 24 - Days before the end of a mammoth protest exhibition, government officials on Wednesday unveiled the results of a feasibility study to raze the crumbling old East German parliament building and make way for a replica of a Prussian castle that would house a five-star hotel and big museum collection.

The German culture minister, Christina Weiss, said the government hoped to start construction by 2007 on the new building, which the study says could cost $650 million to $950 million.

In recent months, proponents have sought to cast the proposed castle, an imitation of one that once stood on the site on the famed Unter den Linden, as an architectural and cultural counterpart to the Louvre in Paris.

„Here is one of the world‘s most famous historic ensembles in the center of Berlin, with the university and the opera house and the cathedral,“ Wilhelm von Boddien, head of the group lobbying to rebuild the old castle, said in an interview on Monday.

„The Palace of the Republic is disturbing the ensemble,“ he said of the old building, a boxy orange-hued 1972 structure that stands out amid the gray and grandiose neo-Classical architecture lining the boulevard. But a very vocal group begs to differ. Arguing that the building should be preserved as a reminder of postwar history, about 160 artists and architects from around the world banded together this month to create a mountain inside the Palace of the Republic.

A fantastical construction of fiberglass and steel, rising 144 feet above the floor, the mountain („Der Berg“) overflows with paintings, theater pieces, video installations, comedy routines, architectural models and sculptures.

The mountain idea was chosen as a conceptual statement - a way of anchoring the building to make it a seemingly immovable object - by Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, 37, an organizer who describes himself as a „performing architect.“

„It will never be a castle,“ he said. „There will be no king, no queen.“ The purpose of the mountain, he said, is to feed off the building and to „suck up the symbolism.“

The artists and architects say they see value in the beleaguered Palace of the Republic, a shell of its former self after being gutted for asbestos removal in the 1990‘s. For them, its golden-mirrored facade - tarnished, pockmarked with cracks and adorned with graffiti - survives as a literally distorted reflection of the dreams and hollow promises of the postwar Communist regime.

Many argue that knocking it down to build a costly castle replica would be an unseemly way of dismissing the recent past. The Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, who said he had been following the building‘s fate with interest, said of the castle project: „I think that‘s a painful part of it - that most historicism is realized at the expense of history.“ To remove the parliament, he added, „feels kind of insanely ahistorical.“

Demolition is planned for the end of the year. „Der Berg“ was erected in a mere eight weeks, at an estimated total cost of $550,000. Of this, said the dramatist Amelie Deuflhard, another organizer, the project received $305,000 in arts funds from the German government, a bit of a paradox, considering that the project is, after all, a statement against government actions.

But the artists got started without official permission.

„We got the permission three days before the opening,“ Ms. Deuflhard said.

Visitors to Der Berg are invited to choose one of three paths to scale the mountain - the way of the philosopher, the pilgrim or the mountaineer. „They‘re three groups of people who have a good reason to go up the mountain,“ Mr. Foerster-Baldenius explained.

Underneath the mountain are large letters, written in delicate script but cast in concrete. They read „Ceci n‘est pas une montagne“ („This is not a mountain“) - a twist on Magritte‘s Surrealist work „Ceci n‘est pas une pipe.“ Faint traces of an audio collage permeate the air: the original Palace architect, Manfred Prasser, explaining how the space was built, tunes from the opening of the Palace in 1972, East German dance music and audio quotations from the time the building was closed for asbestos.

The mountain is to be dismantled over the weekend. Hundreds of visitors are filing in each day - older Germans who remember being in the building in the 1970‘s, teenagers, tourists.

„Whenever people come in, they bring ideas, memories - ideology sometimes,“ Ms. Deuflhard said.

Some of the project‘s - and the building‘s - biggest fans are young people who never experienced the parliament before it became a ruin. „They don‘t have memories of this place filled with lamps and sofas,“ Mr. Foerster-Baldenius said. „It‘s just a cool ghetto space. You can imagine skateboarding in here, having all kinds of music events. It tells you, ‚Spray my walls, paint something on my floor.‘ „

Lars Ramberg, whose recent art project „Palast des Zweifels“ („Palace of Doubt“) placed the word „ZWEIFEL“ („Doubt“) in gigantic neon letters on the top of the Palace of the Republic, also praised the building‘s interior. „I‘m an artist and also a building engineer, and I was stunned by how well it was built from the inside,“ Mr. Ramberg said. „It looks like a new construction site, ready to put up.“

For everyone involved, it is clear that this is a war of symbols, a journey to the heart of the modern German identity. What makes it tricky is that the Palace of the Republic isn‘t just a symbol of Communism. „The fact is that the building has been abandoned longer than it has been in function,“ Mr. Ramberg said. „So the history of the building is not only the G.D.R.,“ referring to the old regime‘s initials. „The history of the building is more of a ruin, and the identity of a ruin.“ He and others argue that Berlin would be better off if it could just be Berlin, with its past mistakes there for everyone to see.

„Why would Berlin want to be a fake Paris?“ Mr. Ramberg said, referring to the remarks by the castle project‘s coordinator. „Paris would never want to be a fake Berlin.“

He added: „People go to Berlin to see traces of Western history. All of it.“