Berlin’s Reichstag building has stood witness to the evolution of Germany since the late nineteenth century. Since its construction, it’s seen the fall of Imperial Germany, the rise of the Nazi Party, the horrors of two World Wars, and the successes—and challenges—of reunification.
Construction of the original Reichstag building, designed by the German architect Paul Wallot, began in 1884 and lasted ten years. Wallot designed a highly ornate building, drawing on classical motifs. The monumental, symmetrical building had a grandiose entrance mimicking the front of the Greek temple, and the glass and iron dome at the structure’s center was erected using the latest construction techniques. German Studies expert Lutz Koepnick explains that “Wallot’s original Reichstag design was intended as a monument to both German national history and the awakening of parliamentary self-confidence in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century.” At a time when Germany still had a monarchy, the grandness of the Reichstag’s design was intended to rival any structure the monarchy would build for itself.
The Reichstag building served as the home of the German government through the end of the Imperial and Weimar Republic periods, that is, until the notorious Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933. The fire was set by Marius van der Lubbe, a Dutch council Communist from Leiden, Netherlands, as a protest against the rise of fascism. In response, “[Adolf] Hitler, who had recently been appointed chancellor, used the Reichstag fire…as an excuse to push through draconian laws that put the last nails in the coffin of Weimar democracy,” writes Peter Jelavich. The day after the fire, on Hitler’s advice, German President Paul von Hindenburg signed the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State (commonly referred to as the Reichstag Fire Decree). The decree eliminated many of the civil liberties in Germany, opening the way for the Nazis to persecute their opponents. The Reichstag building itself was considered too damaged to continue as the government’s home, and the parliamentary chamber was relocated to the nearby Kroll Opera House for the next twelve years.
After the end of World War II, the Reichstag found itself in a ruinous state in West Berlin. Restoration and reconstruction work on the building began in 1961 and was finally completed in 1971. However, due to political agreements between the powers controlling a divided Germany, it couldn’t be used as the meeting place for the West German government.
The year 1989 saw the fall of the Berlin Wall, and in 1990 the official German reunification ceremony was held in front of the Reichstag building. The following year, the German government decided to return to Berlin, but the Reichstag needed to be renovated in preparation. British firm (Sir Norman) Foster + Partners won the competition to do so.
Foster + Partner’s design for the Reichstag embraced old and new. It preserved many historical aspects of the building, including graffiti left by Soviet soldiers in 1945, but brought in contemporary elements, such as the structure’s now iconic glass dome. Many have debated and discussed the implicit symbolism of glass representing transparency, and thus democracy, in analyses of the dome. In fact, the idea of glass as symbolic of transparency in society has a precedent in German modern architecture, notably the theories of Paul Scheerbert and the architectural designs of Bruno Taut.
The Reichstag dome is accessible to the public, offering spiraling ramps that give visitors outward views of the Berlin skyline and inward views of the German government meeting below.
“The Reichstag’s architecture allows crowds of visitors of both international and German tourists to walk within the dome, and in the process to see the center of power below,” writes Albena Yaneva, while “[o]n the other side of the glass-domed shell, the MPs can feel overhead the presence of the collective body of those they represent, reminding them that they can constantly be watched by their electorate.”
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As symbolically effective as it seems today, the dome wasn’t part of Foster’s original vision for the Reichstag. After it chose Foster + Partners as the project’s architect, members of the German government decided that they wanted a domed structure that would stand as a reference to Wallot’s original design. They asked Foster to add that to the building—much to the dismay of architects including Santiago Calatrava, whose domed design had been rejected in favor of Foster’s proposal.
Prior to the rise of the dome, the Reichstag was briefly the star of the western art world. In the summer of 1995, the building found itself the center of Berlin life, and international press coverage, with the opening of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Reichstag. The environmental artists, famed for their interventions in familiar landscapes, covered the whole of the building with 100,000 square meters (1,076,390 square feet) of silver fabric and 15.6 kilometers (9.7 miles) of blue rope. Jelavich explains that Wrapped Reichstag had the capacity to change one’s understanding of the architect.
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“The shape of the building was subtly but significantly transformed: historic details gave way to suggestive geometric shapes, the structure seemed somewhat higher, and the corner towers were more massive and imposing,” Jelavich writes. At the same time, the building also appeared to be a living being as the wind caused ripples and movements in the covering fabric. Five million people came to view Wrapped Reichstag during the two weeks it was on display.
Today, the Reichstag building is one of the most visited sites in Berlin, hosting between 1.5 and 3 million visitors each year. While Germany and greater Europe still grapple with issues of citizenship and nationalism, the building reminds its visitors of a painful past while simultaneously bringing to mind post-Cold War aspirations for political transparency and unity.
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