photos Berlin

Tags

Enlightenment, Frederich II, Huguenot, Prussia

The Equestrian Statue of Frederich II the Great of Prussia on Unter den Linden in Berlin. The monument was unveiled in 1851. It is located in front of the Crown Prince’s Palais and the State Library. It represents the King riding calmly down the avenue towards the City Palace. The monument is surrounded at its base by all the great men who worked for Frederich, many of whom were French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in France. Frederich II Court was famous for welcoming the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment. It is one of my favourite areas of Berlin.

A little gate

Tags

art., Brandenburg, Potsdam, Sans Souci, Travel

If you happen to be in Potsdam follow the Schopenhauerstrasse from the city centre, you can walk it in fact and it is well worth it. You will arrive at this gate called Obelisk Hauptallee which gives you the direct entrance into the pleasure gardens of Sans Souci. It is a very vast garden full of statues, grottos, palaces, a Church and Chinoiserie pavilion.

As you follow this allee look to your right and you will see Sans Souci, if you continue straight on for 2 Km you will arrive at the Neues Palais. Both built by Frederick II the Great, Sans Souci is more like a big mansion, very private, where Frederick only invited those people he really wanted or enjoyed seeing. The Neues Palais or New Palace was for all the Official functions and to house his brothers Henri, William and Ferdinand when they came to Potsdam.  Frederick’s wife Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick lived at Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin which he built for her, she very rarely was invited to come visit Potsdam and even then would be housed in the New Palace or in the City Palace in front of the Church of St-Nicolas.

When you visit Sans Souci, the decor and the layout is very much Frederick’s, it was all about the things he liked most from paintings to books. It is essentially high baroque architecture, he chose the colours, the decor and much of it reflects his taste for the exotic. He lived there with his Whippet dogs. He is buried with them in the front garden of his palace as he wished. After his death in 1786, Sans Souci was closed. His successors and family lived at the Neues Palais or in Berlin at the City Palace until 1918.

The entire park is for pedestrians, it was also used for horse back riding given its vast space. Enormous renovation and restoration of the park and its buildings has taken place in the last 25 years again in an effort to bring it back to what it was before 1914. I walked it on 3 separate occasions and enjoyed its charm and peaceful beauty. You can easily spend a day or two here.

 

 

 

A new Berlin

Tags

Architecture, Church, Faith, Germany, House of One

I am writing this today Monday 11 November, Remembrance Day in Canada when we reflect on the Armistice which ended the First World War. Though I am told that the name First World War belongs really to the War of Liberation in Europe against Napoleon, his 12 campaigns or 12 years of War involving all the Empires and Kingdoms in Europe was then considered a World War by Europeans Princes.

Berlin in the 20th century  was then seen as a Capital of the enemy who wanted to dominate the world. Then the Second World War brought more hatred and calamity on us all. Millions perished, countries ravaged and the world ended up divided between the West and the East with in 1961 a Wall dividing not only a city, Berlin but an entire continent, Europe, a Nuclear Arms race and mutual assured destruction was a political doctrine during the Cold War 1946-1989.

Since the reunification of Germany with the fall of the Wall 30 years ago this week, the German Federal Government decided that a new chapter would be written and this one would focus on peace and cooperation at home and in the world. For Berlin, the Capital once again, the Regional Government of Brandenburg and the Municipal City Council Berlin developed a plan to focus on the Age of Enlightenment and its great thinkers and artists and to take a humanist approach. If you visit Berlin you will see it everywhere, a truly progressive city and outlook.

The project of  House of One on PetriPlatz on FisherIsland, the Medieval centre of the original City of Berlin is in step with the new concept or approach in developing Berlin of the 21th Century.

PetriPlatz was the site of the original Church of St-Peter in Berlin centuries ago. It was destroyed in 1944 in Allied bombings and remained a empty piece of land in East Berlin under the GDR Government.

The project is to build as of 2020 a building The House of One uniting all 3 monotheist religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all having the same Abrahamic Foundation.

The “House of One” will comprise a church, a synagogue and a mosque. Three spaces connected to a central communal room.

The initiative became a foundation and the idea became a design. The model for which has already been exhibited internationally in Chicago and Paris – is special. Deep underground it preserves the archaeological remains of Berlin’s history and the various churches that were built, destroyed, rebuilt or bombed here. Above ground, it will rise some 32 metres into the sky, becoming a symbol of a new era.

The planned cost is around 43.5 million euros, donations coming from various countries. This Fall, the German Federal Government promised to contribute ten million euros, if the state of Berlin and individual donations could match that funding. Now the foundation stone is due to be laid on 14 April 2020.

This date was chosen very deliberately. 14 April 1783 saw the premiere of “Nathan the Wise” in Berlin. The great play by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) is probably the most important work of classic German-language literature on co-operation between Jews, Christians and Muslims. Lessing uses a “Ring parable” to explain that God loves all three monotheistic religions – and they are therefore duty-bound to be tolerant.

‘Petrikirche was the start of Berlin, which has now grown into a multicultural, multi-faith city. A lot has happened over the centuries, this is a sign of peace and tolerance.’says  the architect Wilfried Kuehn.

Two concept views of the new building soaring 32 meters or 104 feet. on PetriPlatz, Berlin.

 

 

Morning photo

Tags

Germany, life, morning, Travel

This lovely morning photo of the domes in Berlin, int the background the bigger vert de gris dome of the Lutheran Cathedral of Berlin on Museum Island, in the foreground the dome of the City Palace getting its new copper covering in baroque style.

9 November 1989 in Cairo

Tags

life, media, Politics, the wall, Travel, World

I was living in Cairo back in 1989, it was a very nice posting. Here I am on my terrace of my apartment in Zamalek on the Nile facing the vast metropolis. The view was wonderful. My little Dachshund Bundnie (Arabic for Brown Coffee) she was quite young then. She was born in Cairo and it was love at first sight, I got her when she was 4 weeks old, too early really but she needed a home and she would proceed to live 17 years and travel the world with us.

On November 9, 1989, I was at the Embassy in Garden City which at the time was near the British Embassy in Cairo. We heard reports of what was going on in Berlin. It was quite a surprise and at first no one really believe it, it was an aberration, how could that be after all those years of Cold War and stand off between the USSR and the USA. Surely we would soon hear that it was just a joke. But no the next day more astonishing news, I remember I wanted to fly to Berlin to see it, but I could not abandon my post. So we all followed (my colleagues and I) the news. Not really knowing what all this would bring, obviously the end was near for the rest of Eastern Europe, communism was on the way out. In December revolution exploded in Romania, on Christmas day Nicola and wife Elena Ceausescu were executed on television after years of terror and ruinous rule. What a year 1989.   My Egyptians friends told me that when in 1952 the army officers with Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the Monarchy in Egypt,  it was far more civilized. King Farouk and his family were given 3 days to pack their bags and sail away on the Royal Yacht from Alexandria. The King and his family were not really Egyptian but from Albanian-Macedonian stock. He died at 45 in Capri of a heart attack.

I would not visit Berlin until 1998 while living in Warsaw. Berlin today is vastly different and a great place to visit or to live.

 

Progress

Tags

City Palace, Germany, Hohenzollern, Humboldt Forum, museum

For the last 20 years I have been following the progress of the re-building of the old Royal Palace in Berlin. It stood in the centre of the City on the Island Museum from 1445 to 1944 when heavy fire bombing over the city at the end of the Second World War did great damage to it. After 1946 the Palace was in the Soviet Occupied Zone of Berlin it came under the puppet East German Regime and like so many buildings deem ideologically unacceptable it was demolished in the 1950’s, the ground became a parking lot and stage for military parade the Communist loved so much. There was opposition in Berlin and in Germany to the demolition of the Palace and its ruins, the palace was so well built that it took months to demolish and 19 tons of explosives. It was and had been a symbol of the city and much history was attached to it.

In 1989 with re-unification of Germany a fellow by the name of Wilhelm von Boddien proposed that the Palace be re-built as it was before the war with its Baroque facade, he further proposed that the palace be renamed Humboldt Forum for the famous German scientists and academics, the interior space would be modern and house a museum of civilizations, conference centre, 2 restaurants, a theatre and be used as a gathering place for all Germans. The financing of 750 Million Euros to be divided between the City of Berlin, the Federal Government of Germany and the public as donors.

In December 2018 here is the almost complete Palace now called Humboldt Forum, it will  re-open in the Summer of 2019.

The Western Facade of the Palace as of December 16, 2018.

The Eastern facade, modern as designed by the Italian Architect with its entrance of the Spree river. It was designed this way to symbolize that it is a reconstruction and a view on the future. The Palace sits next to the Lutheran Cathedral of Berlin on Island Museum.

For the opening of the Humboldt Forum it is likely that the current head of the Imperial Hohenzollern Family of Germany, Prince Georg Frederich of Prussia will be attending. He is the cousin of Prince Harry and Prince William of Great Britain. His great grand father Kaiser Wilhelm II was the favourite grandson of Queen Victoria.

 

 

Berlin City Palace tour

Tags

Capital, City Palace, Germany, Hohenzollern

This past weekend in Berlin a special opening tour of the City Palace for curious Berliners. This project is nearing completion after 18 years of preparation and work. The former City Palace of the Kings of Prussia and Emperors of Germany was very badly damaged in 1944. After the war the old Palace was now in Communist East Berlin, like most of all the great buildings of the German Capital. The Communist leadership decided in the 1950’s to destroy what was left, despite the fact the could have restored it. Since there had been a palace on the site for 500 years, the population was not happy with this decision. For decades the area the size of 3 football fields was a parking lot and parade ground for East German troops.

After German re-unification in 1989, the idea of re-building the City Palace was put forward and the plan was approved by the Federal Government of Germany, the City of Berlin and the State of Brandenburg. The financing budgeted at 800 million Euros is shared amongst levels of government and the public donations of 105 million Euros to re-build the South, North and Western facade in the Baroque style of the 18th century. The Eastern facade is modern as will be the interior. The old rooms of the palace will not be re-built as they are now dedicated to show the collections of diverse cultures, there will be a restaurant on the roof, lecture halls, a library and concert hall.

By re-building the City Palace it completes the architectural ensemble of the heart of the City as envisioned by Frederick II of Prussia (1712-1786). Because they are Baroque facades on three sides, every element had to be carved by hand and in some cases gilded. The gilded balcony railings and many roof statues still have to be installed and the great dome and lantern need to be completed as is the landscaping.

The opening of the Humboldt Forum as the City Palace is now called is scheduled for Summer 2019. Situated next to the Lutheran Cathedral of Berlin and Imperial Mausoleum to the Hohenzollern Family and all the museums containing the wonderful collections, Unter den Linden avenue, and all the other palaces and university of the city is will certainly be a magnet.