The competition for the design of a building for the cultural and public organization "Humboldt-Forum", which should be decorated on three sides by the newly rebuilt facades of the Baroque Stadtschloss palace, ended with the victory of the Italian Francesco Stella, a follower of Aldo Rossi. His project was unanimously approved by the jury; to emphasize the correspondence of this variant to the task of the competition, no second prize was awarded. At the same time, four participants shared the third place, and two more projects were purchased by the organizers.
It should be noted that not all architects who submitted their works for the competition agreed with the Bundestag's decree that the new building should have facades that imitate the historical ones (except for the eastern one), as well as reproduce the general configuration of the old building and part of the design of the courtyards made at the beginning of the 18th century, designed by Andreas Schlüter. Such "opposition" options were selected by the jury in a special group, the best in which was recognized as the project of the bureau Kühn Malvezzi, who received a special prize for it.
The announcement of the results of the competition almost coincided with the end of the demolition of the Palace of the Republic - the building of the People's Chamber, the parliament of the GDR. It was built on the site of the Stadtschloss demolished in 1950 in the second half of the 1970s, and since 1990 has lost its former significance. A striking monument of "Ost-modernism", it has become a bone of contention for the authorities, the architectural community and the general public. The idea of building a remake palace in its place seemed to many to be unjustifiably expensive and inappropriate: the artistic and historical value of such a building would be questionable. At the same time, we are talking about very large-scale buildings that define the appearance of the entire surrounding area. There were supporters of the preservation of the Palace of the Republic, who noted its importance as a monument of history and architecture; for others, he was a hated symbol of a totalitarian regime. Additional arguments in favor of demolition were the poor condition of this building (in particular, asbestos was widely used during its construction) and the difficulty of adapting it to the new function (although there was no shortage of such projects).
As a result, the Palace of the Republic was dismantled in 2006-2008, and in the future something resembling a new hotel "Moscow" should appear in its place: behind the baroque facades there will be modern exhibition halls for the State Museums of Berlin and the Humboldt University, the premises of the Central and the regional library of Berlin; and spaces for social events. According to Stella's project, the "old" facades will coexist both outside and in the courtyard with new: restrained arcades, colonnades and walls dismembered with profiles. Due to the severity of new forms of stylistic dissonance does not arise, which cannot be said about the ideological side of the matter. Some residents of the former GDR of the older generation see the demolition of the Palace of the Republic as an attempt to belittle the historical significance of this country that has ceased to exist. It is not yet clear what the new Stadtscholoss will represent for the Germans.
However, in the conditions of the economic crisis, one cannot be sure that the plans of the German authorities - to begin construction of the Humboldt Forum complex in 2010 - will be fully or partially implemented.
