Photos from my favourite places.

Some places I always enjoyed at Christmas, of course Rome, Belleza Aeterna, Palermo, Sicily such charm and faded elegance, Berlin a re-born Capital. What did I enjoy, well the food, the atmosphere, often quiet in the city and neighbourhoods, the parks and the wintery flowers, the brisk air, the weather and the pleasure of walking in a city with beautiful sights. The people and the little courtesies of the Season and all the traditions which makes Europe special.

 Fireworks seen from the Tiber River, Rome. The Fireworks are on top of the Janiculum Hill. 

Pariser Platz, Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate

Teatro Massimo, Palermo, Sicily, one of the largest Opera house in the world

Warsaw old Town at the Royal Palace.

 Ottawa Christmas lights by the Rideau Canal

The Old Teacher's College on Elgin Street

Our Mayor Jim Watson, serving lunch at the Ottawa Mission, a great guy!

Garibaldi Memorial on the Janiculum Hill in Rome in the snow

For those of you who think it never snows in the Eternal City.

May you all have a wonderful Christmas wherever you may be.

The final hymn '' Puer Nobis Nascitur'' of the Lutheran Christmas Morning Mass of 1620 in Germany, by Michael Praetorius 

re-constructions and renovations of Monuments

City Palace Berlin, Sagrada Familia Barcelone, FrauenKirche Dresden, Lower Town Quebec City, Ara Pacis Rome, Parthenon Athens.

In my life of travelling and living abroad I have come across many sights which have been resurrected from the past or cleaned up or re-built. Why do governments do it, in most cases to recapture shares of the mass tourist market, tourist want to see things they do not have back home. Per example see London like Mary Poppins or the Rome of the Popes or early Christians or see ancient monument reborn after centuries of neglect. We want to recapture the past and with our modern sensibilities pretend we are just like the ancient, though sometimes it makes for funny situations, per example one remark often heard when visiting a former Royal Palace now a museum, tourist no.1 will say to tourist no.2 Can you imagine living in a place like this, it must have been nice.
The reality is if either of these persons had lived in the past centuries, they probably would have been peasants in the fields working hard and would never have come anywhere near such a place, this because of social barriers and strict divisions of society.

In 1962 the old City of Quebec the portion within the old Walls and the Lower town below by the St-Lawrence river dating back to 1608 was in ruins. Things were so bad the Provincial Government was considering bulldozing the whole thing and making it all modern. Luckily the Federal Government owned most of it and forbade the grand scale demolition, it also started to invest into rehabilitating the City walls, Quebec is the only city in North America with complete defensive walls and gates and dozens of stone homes from the 17th Century built in a French Norman Style. Today people from around the world come to Quebec City to see La Vieille Capitale, because Quebec was the Capital of the French Empire until 1763 and then the Royal Capital of Canada until 1820. So history is everywhere in its historic streets.

 Eglise Notre Dame des Victoires, 1688

Place Royale, Ville de Quebec

Petit Séminaire de Quebec, 1664

I started to visit Athens around 1998 though I had often flown over the City in the late 1980's never had I actually visited.
Athens was a small city until 1960's it is only in the last 35 years that a real estate boom has made it
into a megapolis, though the total population is 800,000. Not exactly Montreal or even Rome at 3 million people.   The Symbol of the City is the Acropolis and the Parthenon built originally in 480 BC and re-built in 438 BC to honour the Goddess Athena Parthénos, ( Virginal Pallas triomphant) who protects her City and its people. The Parthenon is said to be the most perfect Doric style temple ever built.

To my mind the Parthenon is the symbol of the Western World, there is no more beautiful site than to watch the Sun rise in the morning and its rays hitting the White with a golden tinge Pentelic marble of the Temple making it shine as if it was made of gold.  When you look at it you are reminded that theatre, philosophy, democracy, trial by jury, all come from this ancient site.

The statue of Athena stood in her temple until the fifth century AD when a fire destroyed it. With the arrival of Christians the Acropolis and the Parthenon suffered vandalism and then the Ottoman Turks occupied the site for many centuries until that fateful day when a Venetian Captain Morosini attacking Athens from the Sea aimed his canons on the Temple which at this point was used as a gunpowder store by the occupying Ottoman Turkish army. The explosion from the direct hit in September 1687 caused the devastation we see to this day. However in the last 25 years Greek Archeologists with funds from the European Union have worked at restoring this ancient temple and others on the Acropolis, like the small temple of Athena Nike and the main entrance gate the Propylae and the Erechtyion returning them to what they were like before the attack by the Venetian fleet of 1687. It is also a function of consolidating the buildings and preventing any further degradation. Using titanium rods on the blocks instead of steel which rust and then eats away at the marble. In some cases new marble blocks have been carved to replace those to weak or degraded. In my lifetime I can say that I have seen the Parthenon and the other temples restored or reborn. Many might say why restore such an ancient site, I think that in this case given the importance of this sacred place for us Occidentals, this hill must continue to live forever.

Temple of Athena Nike, restored 2011

Propylae gate, Acropolis in restoration 2010

Parthenon under continuous restoration in June 2014.

The Capital of Saxony, Dresden was totally destroyed in a fire bombing by the British forces on the night of 14 February 1945, 600,000 civilians died burned alive in the firestorm. Dresden was not a strategic city and had no military value, it was known for its culture and art. Canaletto had made a very famous painting of the city in the 18th century. This painting was so accurate in its architectural detailing that it was used to rebuilt the city from its ashes after 1989. 

The devastation of Dresden was total and after the end of the Second World War, Dresden was behind the Iron Curtain in East Germany. There was no money for re-building and very little effort was made to repair the damage inflicted. Most of its civilian population had died, so the Communist authorities decided to rebuilt here and there in a haphazard way outside of the old city limits. The Lutheran Church wanted it's main temple re-built because of its association with Martin Luther who had preached there. But all this re-building had to wait German reunification in 1990, from public donations from around the world the Lutheran Church was able to rebuild the Frauen Kirche of Dresden originally built by architect George Bahr in 1726 it had survived intact other wars and invasions until that fateful night in 1945.

The plan to rebuild this one church gave the impetus to massively rebuild the old city including the other churches and the Royal Palace of the Princes of Saxony, the Semper Opera house and other palaces and museum. We first visited around 1999, the old City was a field of construction and the Frauen Kirche was only half rebuilt. When we returned in 2014 most of the work was complete and the Church itself had been re-dedicated and is now serving the Lutheran Community of Dresden. 

Dresden is also famous for its porcelain and the celebrated Meissen Porcelain factory. Some 23,000 pieces of 17th and 18th century porcelain can be admired in the Zwinger Palace forming the private collection of the Royal Family of Saxony.  Then the beautiful Art museums and the Residenzschloss or Royal Palace and its incredible precious jewels and other rare objects collections, requiring a minimum of 2 days to fully appreciate the wealth of the collections which can now be seen as prior to 1939 in all its glory.

Dresden and the FrauenKirche on the New Market Square, 1742 by Bernardo Bellotto

Dresden re-built in June 2014

FrauenKirche re-built in June 2014

FrauenKirche in ruin after fire bombing of 1945 with the Statue of Martin Luther. Reconstruction will start in 1996 only.

Partial view inside the FrauenKirche, Dresden, 2014 (Lutheran Baroque)

Despite the beauty of the reconstruction and how faithful to all the details to ensure accuracy, I was somewhat disappointed, difficult to explain, maybe it was the realization that I was not looking at the original Church or City but a faithful copy. I also wondered if future generations will understand what happened to this city in 1945, one could understand if they forgot all about it or disbelieved any tale of war and mayhem.

Moving on to Rome where nothing is ever changing or so it seems one could be forgiven for the fact that much of what we see today in Rome is often the case of the will of men to change the city to suit a political program. It is often said that Rome looks like a theatre set, every angle is like a theatre set design to attract the eye to a beautiful panorama.
First the Popes on their return from Avignon in France decided to remake Rome.
The numerous well preserved Temples of Antiquity were dismantled to be used in the rebuilding of churches and public works. Then other works of art were used to decorate palaces and gardens, often with a beautiful effect. However much was also destroyed carelessly for mercantile reasons.

Unified Italy as of 1870 embarked on a program of changing Rome to suit its new image as a Republican Monarchy opening new streets like Via Cavour and Via Nazionale in the heart of the City and building the great walls along the Tiber to prevent winter floods. Then when Mussolini came to power in 1923 he wanted Rome to reflect its imperial glory so he employed historians, archeologists and architects to find all those pieces of the puzzle that were still buried and he resurrected temples or part of them like the Temple of the Vestal Virgins in the Roman Forum or the Arch of Titus or went on to build the Via dei Fori Imperiali crossing the whole of the ancient Forum area so he could have great military parades à la Hollywood.

So when you visit Rome today the ruins you see are the work of the Fascist era (1923-1943), unwittingly Mussolini helped the Italian Tourist Industry for decades to come. Tourist have something to see.

One such monument amongst many to have been resurrected and it is a magnificent one, is the Ara Pacis Augustae (Altar to Augustan Peace) as the name indicates it was to celebrate world peace brought about with the pacifying of the Barbarian nations. A monument built as a testimony to the legacy of Octavian the nephew of Julius Caesar better known to us as Augustus the first Emperor of Rome (63BC to 14AD) and probably the greatest and best. His legal legacy still resonates with us today and is found carved in stone on the side of the building housing the Ara Pacis, the Res Gestae in Canada Lawyers call it the Law of Evidence.

The monument was built at the request of the Roman Senate in July of 13BC and was located in the Field of Mars an area nowadays around the Via del Corso and Via del Parlamento. The soil being quite soft in the area the weight of the monument caused it to sink into the ground and only 60 years later it was half buried. Eventually it disappeared completely only to be re-discovered by accident during excavations in 1568 under Palazzo Chigi and more fragments surfaced in 1859 and in 1903. Those fragments ended up in the Vatican Museum, the Villa Borghese, the Uffizi Museum and the Louvre in Paris. In 1937 to celebrate the 2000 Birthday of Augustus, Mussolini ordered that the whole monument be excavated and re-assembled in a new site by the Tiber and next to the Mausoleum of Augustus at Ponte Cavour and Via Tomacelli, a special building was also built to house the monument. That building was again completely re-designed in 2006 by architect Richard Meier. Nonetheless the Ara Pacis is a very important monument for the Western World.

I studied that monument in school as a kid and imagine how wonderful it was for me to see it in 2007 for the first time in person. Though the white marble stone today does not show the original colours, think of an Hindou Temple, every year on the anniversary of the birth of Augustus the monument is displayed at night with a show of light so the public can see it again as it was then, the bold colours are jarring to our modern sensibilities.

I visited the Ara Pacis numerous times and am still in awe of its magnificent grandeur.

West side  

 East Side

Members of the Imperial Family, all can be identified by name.

One monument which is being re-created from scratch is the City Palace of Berlin, for centuries this was the Palace of the Princes of Brandenburg, then the Official Palace of the Prussian Kings and finally the Palace of the German Emperor until 1918.

The palace was bombed and burned in 1944 but could still be restored, however with the partition of Germany in 1945 it fell in the Eastern Sector of the City and the Communist authorities decided to blow it up in 1953 to make way for a military parade ground instead, more goose stepping. 

The palace was in an area of Berlin which housed a unique complex of buildings, university and museums at the end of the ceremonial road Unter den Linden (under the linden trees) which starts at the Brandenburg Gate. The palace was located on an island on the Spree River next to the Lutheran Cathedral and all the museums housing the various art and archeological collections. 

As of 1990 the new united City of Berlin and the Federal Government of Germany decided to renovate all the historical buildings of the Eastern sector left derelict by the Communist government for decades. In fact in 1985 the East German government had threatened to blow up every historical building in its sector if the West German government did not pay the full price of reconstruction. Had this plan gone ahead much of the 800 years of the history of Berlin would have been lost forever. 

Berlin has been one huge rebuilding project since 1990, it's infrastructure, the rail system, the U and S ban and its real estate all of it renewed or rebuilt. The Lutheran Cathedral, the various museum on the island and every other monument and palace rebuilt. Frederick II the Great is back on Unter den Linden riding into the City again a top his monument. The one missing link was the City Palace, it took years of discussion and consultation and finally the Federal Parliament (Bundestag) sitting in the rebuilt old Reichstag building voted in favour of rebuilding, the City of Berlin also supported the plan. However first the old East German Parliament building had to be demolished and that took 3 years when it was discovered the building was full of asbestos. 

Palast der Republik, GDR, Berlin in 1977

The idea is to rebuild the palace on the outside as it was before 1918 and make of the interior a modern University conference centre and library with museums on foreign cultures. It will be called the Humboldt Forum after the German brothers Alexander and Wilhelm Von Humboldt. With the palace rebuilt the entire area will have a homogenous architectural look recalling the 18th Century and the age of Enlightenment. 

What the rebuilt City Palace or Humboldt Forum will look like in 2019.

I have been following the entire saga since the beginning in the 1990's and this December construction of the shell of the palace is complete. Though the Federal Government of Germany will pay for the entire completion of the inside of the structure the decorative Baroque elements on the outside must be paid for by private donations and at the moment some 60 Million Euros still need to be raised, completion date 2019. It should be said that a lot of controversy surrounds this project, though now it is well on its way to be completed. Though it is only to fulfil a wish to have the city centre whole that this project was put forward, many advocated that something different be built. However historically speaking for 600 years a Palace stood in this place. See the link
http://berliner-schloss.de/en/humboldt-forum-new-palace

You can see a photo of today 1 Dec 2014 at 21:05 Berlin Time and how advanced the construction of the Palace is at this point, they are at the roof top.
http://cam01.berlinerschloss-webcam.de/?id=1417459501

Another project this one in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain is the Church of the architect Gaudi, La Sagrada Familia under construction since 1882 it is nearing completion now due to strong tourist interest and ticket sales to visit the site. As a child I had heard of this church by Gaudi and how no one knew if it would ever be completed. Antoni Gaudi died in 1926 in Barcelona run over by a street car. After his death no one knew if the church could be completed, since it was very much his inspiration which created this masterpiece. Then the Spanish Civil War saw a great deal of chaos, the Catholic Church in Spain sided with the Fascist forces of General Franco and in Catalonia there was much repression of the population. The Church was no ones friend, the Republican lashed out and attacked the construction office where all the archives of Gaudi were kept everything was destroyed including the mock-ups of the final product. Now construction stopped completely, to add to this sad situation General Franco was victorious, he exiled the Royal Family and proclaimed himself dictator at the same time he allied himself with Nazi Germany. The Second World War saw more economic disaster befell Spain and despite being a Neutral country it was very isolated. After the war a commission of academics and other experts decided that the Sagrada Familia Church should stand as is incomplete as a monument to Gaudi. It was only in 1975 with the death of General Franco and the return to democracy and a restoration of the Monarchy that once again the construction work re-started but this time with a panel of artists and architects devoted to seeing the vision of Gaudi for his church in the completion of the project. Only having a few documents in private hands from the time of Gaudi and some of his writings to guide them, new financing was devised in organized tours of the site where tourist would pay to gawk at what was going on.

Here is the first drawing of what the Sagrada Familia would have looked like, a design by Francisco de Paula Villar y Lozano, the first architect who would be replaced by Antoni Gaudi. Of this original design only the underground crypt church was completed in 1900. Gaudi then changed everything and started on his vision.

Floor plan of the Sagrada Familia by Gaudi. 

The current construction schedule is going well and the Church is well on its way to be completed after 70 years of sleep. At this time though it is not clear if the main front entrance of the Basilica the Portico of Glory will be completed, the reason is that it now stands above a express train tunnel (Paris -Barcelona) and the vibration of this high speed train as it enters Barcelona may affect the front of the building. Also in 1975 the land immediately across the street was sold to a developer in what many see as a shady land deal. So the great staircase and plaza planned for the area cannot be built now since condominiums occupy this land. 

Glory Portico which may never be finished.

The Passion Portico and the Nativity Portico face parks and can easily be admired. Maybe in a way given the tortuous story of the construction of this church it is better if part of it remains unfinished.

Certainly the rest 90% will be completed by 2026, sone 144 years after the beginning of the work.

What is wonderful about this construction is that all the funds came and still come from private donations and tourists buying tickets to visit the site.  

Panoramic view of the ceiling vault of the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona.

This view is dizzying but given the high luminosity of the Church and the multitude of stain glass, the gold on the ceiling, your eyes are really seeing a marvellous feat of architecture. The columns are not painted, they are stone and they take on various shades of colour as the Sun illuminates the building, this changes as the hours pass. The most magical of effect.
There are more photos at this site http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia

The basilica in 2014.

There are many more projects around the world, St-Petersburg is another one where dozens of Palaces have been meticulously restored and turned into museums or hotels. A whole generation of Russian artisan is being trained to produce furniture and other objects but also trades in refurbishing these historical buildings. This could be another entry unto itself.
In Asia Japan, Vietnam and Cambodia have projects to redo sites which have been neglected or abandoned. China redid its Forbidden City in advance of the Olympics games a few years ago, though unfortunately with little care for historical accuracy. 

  

Kolonnade am Neuen Palais

I started going to Berlin around 1997, it was a time when the whole city was under a major transformation effort. Berliners had lived in a strange suspended atmosphere since August 1961 when the Berlin wall went up and very effectively divided the City in two, isolating the Western part within the greater East German State. The Old East side of the City was left untouched by the Communist as a monument to war and the new Socialist model city was built on the Eastern side of the Spree River. On the Western side there was renovation and reconstruction but it was a siege mentality, no one knew how long it would go on. Well, the wall fell in November 1989 and life in Berlin and Germany changed for ever.

With Reunification in 1990 the re-established Capital of Berlin and it's City Government decided that a new philosophy was required to give Berlin a boost. Politicians decided that Berlin should return to its roots and this could be achieve by putting the emphasis on the Spirit of the Age of Enlightenment.
Promoting Germany's great philosophers, musicians, poets, artists and academics, it was said that the Nazi Dictatorship which lasted 12 years could not and should not be the only thing that defined Berlin or Germany.

Potsdam as a suburb of Berlin just a few minutes away by public transport was also greatly disfigured by the second world war and then fell into a somewhat sleepy state for many decades of negligence by the Communist authorities. Potsdam was the Residence of the Kings of Prussia and then the German Emperors. It is said it was a garrison town, yes in a way it was, however having the Court living in the City made for a centre of art and culture. The King would travel to the City Palace in Berlin for important State functions otherwise would simply live and work from the Potsdam City Palace or in one of the many other palaces in Potsdam, like the Neues Palais (New Palace) located in the great Royal Park where the famous Sans Souci Palace of Frederic II the Great is also located.

Neues Palais c.1763, Royal Park Potsdam

Berlin in the 1990's was a beehive of activity, still is, everything on the Eastern side of the City where most of the marvellous Baroque Architecture was located was in need of re-building. The infamous wall had to be removed completely to the point that it is difficult nowadays to say where it was. The Reichstag was re-built by the famous English Architect Norman Foster in 2000 to serve as the new Parliament of the re-united Germany.

The old Reichstag now the German Bundestag

At the same time all the museums on the museum Island on the Spree in the heart of the Capital were re-built or restored as well the high Italian Renaissance style Lutheran Cathedral and the Roman Pantheon like Catholic Cathedral St-Hedwige. Many other buildings throughout the city and monuments like the famous Brandenburg Gate were also restored in it's XVIII century style.
This of course included the necessary and expensive work of infrastructure and railways to be modernized. Postdamer Platz and Liepziger Platz where the Canadian Embassy is now located were totally rebuilt given that this was where Hitler had his Chancellery and then the Wall crossed the area, it was nothing but empty expanses for decades after 1945.

 Leipziger Platz, Berlin, newly rebuilt

So I decided while visiting Berlin in 1999 to visit Potsdam. Easy enough to do since it is a suburb, though a separate city and the seat of the Parliament of the Land of Brandenburg.

Potsdam being the Residence of the Hohenzollern dynasty has many palaces, parks and magnificent villas in the Italianate style. Though on my first visit what I really wanted to see was the palace of Frederick II, Sans Souci where he entertained his friends like Voltaire, musicians like J.S. Bach and others.
I remember walking from the train station across the Havel river and up the street to the Royal Park. Potsdam is an old city so it is very walkable and the distances are not great. So I first visited Sans Souci which is a gem of the baroque age. Built on the specification of Frederick II it was his hermitage, a place where no one came unless specifically invited, his grenadier guards would keep others at bay. A small palace more like a large mansion decorated in the colours and taste of Frederick, his wife was never invited to come here, she lived in the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin.

Frederick was re-buried as was his wish in the garden of his palace beside his Italian hounds in 1991.

I then walked in the park the 2 Km distance to the Neues Palais built by Frederick after the Seven Year War. The vast park is dotted with Chinoiserie like the Tea House and Palaces like the Orangerie and the Marble Palace, there is also the Antique Temple which at the time was a museum for the coin collection of Frederick but became a mausoleum to the Hohenzollern family around 1850. The Neues Palais was built for Official functions and for Frederick's family to live in when they came to Potsdam or attended Court. This way no one came to Sans Souci and could be barred from approaching again by his faithful Grenadier. 

What surprised me at the Neues Palais was how small the rooms used by Frederick or his brothers were. They are very utilitarian, a bedroom is also your dressing room and a room to have a meal in.
A second room is for your aide de camp to sleep and work in and for receiving visitors. All the other great State rooms where for Official functions and opened only on such occasion so to save on heating and lighting cost. Frederick was a Calvinist after all. Sans Souci on the other hand was to live in so he had many more rooms and privacy. Though guests were made to sleep in town at a Tavern or some house put at their disposal.

When I visited Potsdam much of the renovations we see today like the restored Canals and rebuilt Palaces and other monuments was just getting under way. Much was in the planning phase such as the re-building of the City Palace in front of the St-Nicholas Church.

In front of the Neues Palais is a large courtyard for military reviews and parades on the other side of which is a Colonnade in late baroque style c.1767. It was in a terrible ruined state, victim of the weather, neglect and bombing during the Second World War. Originally this colonnade and buildings was used  to house the servants and staff of the Palace. Today it is one of the four campuses of the University of Potsdam.

The renovations have just been completed at a cost of 2.5 million Euros. I was impressed with this restoration work given the dilapidated state of this colonnade after 60 years of neglect and damage by war. It is basically plaster, stone and masonry work and needs to be regularly maintained to keep its pristine appearance. Here in Canada we do not maintain anything, usually we simply demolish and put in a parking lot or some terrible modern structure. Recently I read that the City of Ottawa had given the green light to the demolition of no.7 Clarence street in the old By Ward market. The building is simple and small, it is made of leftover stones which were used for the construction of the Rideau Canal. There was so much cut stone left over that the Government simply sold it to whoever wanted it for a low sum of money. This is why in the entire Ottawa Valley every building has a grey stone facade on Main street and many public buildings of the period c. 1830 are of stone.

The National Capital Commission and its architects said that the building had come to the end of its life and should be demolished. They proposed instead a what was described as a ''sensitively designed  modern building for the 21th century''. It's a glass box with steel here and there, it simply does not fit with any of the other buildings in the market area. The City Committee refused the design saying it was not acceptable for the historic district. I wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Ottawa Citizen to present the point of view that if in Europe buildings can be saved and restored why can we not do the same thing. The letter was very popular and well received, the NCC wanted to know who I was and looked my profile up on Linked In.

No. 7 Clarence will be demolished unfortunately because of the mediocrity which permeates all levels of government and the NCC nowadays. Lack of vision and no imagination, preferring to do whatever the developers want. Hopefully the design proposed by the NCC will not be as offensive as the first draft.

Colonnade opposite the New Palace in Potsdam c. 1920. It was built in 1767.

In 1997 prior to any restoration work, the damage of time can be seen clearly.

 There are 65 sculptures on the colonnade and many were either missing or damaged. They had to be replaced and artisans sculpted new ones identical to the old ones.

 one of the corner pavillon of the colonnade being restored in 2012

Central arch of the colonnade prior to restoration looking across at the New Palace

Berliner Schloss

For the last 11 years I have been following the story of the re-building of the City Palace in Berlin historical centre on the Island where all the art collections of the Prussian Kings and German Emperors are located in various buildings and the Lutheran Cathedral of the City.

The City Palace was for about 900 years the Residence of the Hohenzollern Dynasty. The Palace was destroyed in part during the Second World War and completely destroyed by the Communist Government of the GDR in the 1950's.

This left a huge hole in the centre of the City and since reunification the City Government of Berlin and many private individuals have advocated that the Palace should be rebuilt to form a united architectural ensemble in that area. Finally the plan was approved at various levels of government in Germany and through a partnership of public and private funds the City Palace is being re-built.

The exterior will be a replica of the old Palace but the inside will be modern, a design by an Italian architect has been retained. It will be a cultural centre and will focus on learning, culture and the Arts.

This is what the web cam shows on 15 December 2013 on the progress of re-construction so far. It is progressing well. A similar Palace reconstruction project was completed in Potsdam city centre just a few months ago.  See the link http://cam03.berlinerschloss-webcam.de

Berlin developments

If you are a reader of this blog you will know that for the last 15 years I have been following developments in Berlin in regards to the re-building of significant 18th century buildings in the City centre and in surrounding areas including the old Royal Capital of Potsdam.

For the last 20 years the Government of the City of Berlin and the Federal Government of Germany and the Land of Brandenburg have invested phenomenal amounts of money into making of Berlin once again a great European Capital as it was prior to 1933 when the Nazi dictatorship took over Germany which led to so much destruction and death.

The vision of the German authorities as been to return Berlin to its status as a City of Enlightenment as it was under Frederick II of Prussia and under the numerous philosophers, musicians and artists which made Germany famous.

All the great museums of the Museum Island in central Berlin have now been rebuilt and refurbished, so too the Lutheran Cathedral. The great avenue Unter den Linden is once again lined with double rows of Linden trees from the Brandenburg Gate to the Palace Bridge and the various historical buildings lining this famous avenue have also been restored.

A group of German Citizens got together and proposed that the City Palace be rebuilt so to complete the architectural ensemble of the German Capital. The Palace was the Berlin Residence of the Hohenzollern Dynasty who ruled Brandenburg, then Prussia as of 1701 and the German Empire from 1870. The entire life cycle of Berlin for the last 800 + years have been marked by this one reigning family.

The Palace was heavily bombed and caught fire in the last days of the Second World War, though damaged the Palace could have been salvaged but in 1950 the Communist rulers of what had become the Eastern sector of Berlin decided to blow up and demolish what was left. Instead they built in 1974 a People's Palace in the traditional brutal architectural style of the Communist era. With the reunification of the city after 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall and Communist regime, Berlin became once again the Capital of a United Germany. The German Parliament moved from Bonn to Berlin and re-occupied the re-built Reichstag. The British Architect Norman Foster preserved the old walls of the building but designed an entirely modern structure inside, using glass for walls and the great dome. He explained that the transparency of glass would be the symbol of the return of democracy.

Now after years of debate and fund raising by citizens the old Imperial City Palace of the Hohenzollern is being re-built on the scale it once occupied, the outside walls will be exactly as they were before the war, however the inside will now be dedicated to learning. For this reason it will be called the Humboldt Forum, after Wilhelm and Alexander Von Humboldt who were friends with Schiller and Goethe. The Palace re-building program is financed by private funds and supplemented by the Senate of Berlin and the Federal Government of Germany. Total cost of rebuilding the Palace $780 million dollars, completion date 2018.

Here are some pictures of the construction activities and area.

 Cathedral of Berlin at night across the street from the construction site

Humboldt Box interpretation centre on the reconstruction project

 Part of the site under construction

From the café terrace of the Humboldt Box view of another part of this reconstruction project.

 What it will look like once re-built, front facade.

Side cut view of the whole building, this entire project was conceived by an Italian architect.

Books I read lately

Lately I have read 4 books on people who lived at the same time during one specific period of history in different countries, Canada, the UK, Germany and Poland, the period 1930 to 1948.
The books are; King: William Lyon Mackenzie King, A life, by Allan Levine, A daughter's tale: the Memoir of Winston Churchill's daughter, by Mary Soames, Letters from Berlin: A story of war and survival by Kerstin Lieff and Fifteen Journeys Warsaw to London by Jasia Reichardt.

As a complement to those books, years ago I read 2 memoirs of the Princesses Marie and Tatiana Vassiltchikoff who were born in St-Petersburg before the revolution and whose father was attached to the Household of Czar Nicholas II.
The family escaped Russia in 1918 on a warship sent by King George V to rescue his Russian relatives and they settled in Germany.

Both Marie and Tatiana will work as secretaries at the German Foreign Ministry for many years and will become involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler, barely escaping arrest out of shear luck. Their books, The Berlin Diaries 1940-1945 by Marie and A purgatory of fools by Tatiana gives their account of Berlin and Germany under the Nazi dictatorship and their comments on some of the Nazi high officials they met in the course of their work.
At the end of the war Marie will marry an Englishman and move to the UK while Tatiana will marry Prince Paul Metternich-Winneburg and live out her life at Joannisberg Palace, her Wine Estate in Southern Germany.

I love this passage from Princess Tatiana's book; When all was over, we learnt that horror was not the sum of human experience. Those who survived would only remember the flashes of light in the darkness: the warm comradeship, the selfless gesture of love or courage which seemed the last reality in a world gone mad, where finally simplicity and gentleness remained the only valid sounds in a man's heart.


While living in Warsaw, I read around 1999 a book by a famous German media personality, Countess Marion Dönhoff, entitled Une enfance en Prusse Orientale. Her family is famous since the Middle-Ages, an old Aristocratic Prussian family, linked to Frederic II the Great of Prussia. She was for many decades the Editor and Publisher of the liberal weekly DIE ZEIT, her nickname was la Contesse démocrate. She was closely associated with the war time history of Germany, involved in the plot in 1944 to assassinate Hitler. Her book is wonderful to read, it gives an impression of life in old Prussia on her family estate in Koenigsberg today Kaliningrad. I remember writing to her after reading her book and getting a very nice reply from her. At the end of the war she rode her horse from Eastern Prussia all the way to Hamburg, an incredible distance, fleeing the advancing Soviet army. Near Berlin she stopped at the estate of the Bismarck family in Varzin, Pomerania and spent just a few hours. She tried to convince the aged great grand daughter of the Chancellor to flee with her. The old lady pointed to the garden of the Chateau and said, I am very old, I would not get far and I asked my gardener to dig my grave, so that if the Soviets shoot me, they can bury me quickly.

Here is one quote from Countess Dönhoff's book on the futility of revenge; I also do not believe that hating those who have taken 
over one's homeland...necessarily demonstrates love
for the homeland. When I remember the woods and
lakes of East Prussia, its wide meadows and old shaded
avenues, I am convinced that they are still as
incomparably lovely as they were when they were my
home. Perhaps the highest form of love is losing without
possessing.

These books got me interested in what it was like to live under the Nazi regime, they tell their individual story which is quite different from the usual story about that period. As life goes it was a messy time and nothing was simple, some Germans were fooled into believing that since they were a law abiding society, governed by processes, nothing bad could happen, until it did.


What I find also very interesting is that all the writers are all more of less the same age but all from different milieu. All oppose the Nazis and Hitler and by their tales allow the reader to grasp what it must have been like to live in a society dominated by ideology, cruelty and the rule of the arbitrary.  There is also explanations of the beliefs and attitudes of the time which stand in sharp contrast if not total opposition to what we believe today. It is at times difficult to believe that the world in Europe and North America was so very different from today.

I started with the biography of our longest serving Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, 22 years in office. Based on his own diaries, which total more than 2 million pages, we have the picture of a very insecure man, who could be petty, mean and very self-centered, who never seemed to appreciate those who worked for him and did not suffer the slightest criticism real or imagined. It is well known now, but not so during his life, that he was deeply involved into the occult and spiritualism, his dead mother and his dead dog Pat 1 figure prominently into his diaries. In June 1939 King George VI and the Queen had lunch with Mackenzie King at Laurier House is home in Ottawa and then the Official Residence of our Prime Minister, he apparently gave a tour of the large house to the King and showed him where he held his séance. I can just imagine what the King must have thought.

Mackenzie King was a bigot and an anti-semite by today's standards but then many in his Cabinet and in the general population in Canada had the same attitudes, Fascism was popular to counter the Communist threat and unemployment. Mackenzie King met several times with Churchill and his daughter Mary Soames, who in her book describes him as a bit of an old Aunt. Rex as he was known to his friends really believed that he was a big player in the conferences that were held during the Second World War in Quebec City at the Chateau Frontenac. In 1938 he met with Hitler in Berlin and with Mussolini in Rome. He thought Hitler a nice chap and told him not to abandon his good work for Germany and advised him not to launch a war. Strangely enough at the end of the war when he is told that Hitler has committed suicide, Rex writes in his diary, I told him not to start a war, such a mistake.

The book of Mary Soames is about her life, that of great privilege, of her family and her father Winston and her mother Clementine. Her cousin the Duke of Marlborough and life at Chartwell or at the Admiralty or 10 Downing street. Christmas parties at Blenheim Palace and life for a young girl leading up to the war. Then she joins in the war effort and gets involved manning anti-aircraft guns in the defence of London. It is somewhat surreal to read this book, she describes how while stationed with her company, her father, the Prime Minister, would appear for an inspection tour. She would know he was coming before her Commanding Officer. She will often accompany her father and she is privy to State secrets. She meets FDR whom she likes a lot and many other important people like DeGaulle. Her memoirs are a special more personal access the world of the Churchill family, her father and mother.

She describes her fellow soldiers as nice middle-class people, good mannered. Her weekends are at parties given by friends in high society, much dancing and frivolities. The reader wonders what did her mates thought of all this, they lived in very different world. In Mary Soames world there was no great rationing, her mother always has some specialty food treat. Tragedy did strike during the war years, she writes in her diaries of the sadness and sacrifice of British people, but there is a stiff upper lip tone to it all.

Then the story of one German girl about the same age as Mary Soames and the story of another girl, a Pole living in Warsaw under difficult circumstances due to her family being Jewish.

In the book Letters from Berlin, we have the life of  Margarete Dos, born in Pomerania (Prussia) now part of Poland. Her family was well to do and her life story is told through a series of letters and recollections she gave to her daughter before she died in 2005. She grew up during the Nazi dictatorship and the family moved during that time to Berlin. Her father had in 1933 told the family that Hitler and the Nazi party would ruin Germany, that these people were no good, but Margarete being a child did not pay much attention. Her mother remarried when her father died after falling off his horse. Her step-father was an Officer in the German Navy and worked at the Navy HQ in Berlin.

Like all children she had other interests and pre-occupations centered on teenager concerns, though in September 1939 at the start of the war she becomes aware that the adults are worried and that her mother is frightened of what is coming.  Her younger brother and she will witness from their home the events of Kristallnacht in 1938 and how they as children are uncomprehending and see that the adults around them keep quiet out of fear. At the same time, she describes the life of her school friend Hilde, who is half-Jewish and who remains in Berlin with her family until the end of the war, with the help of friends and neighbours.

She has vivid recollections of being told by her mother to be afraid of the SS and the Gestapo and to avoid them at all cost. As the war progresses she is a University student in Jena and then works as a Red Cross nurse and sees friends die in the bombing of cities. She like so many Germans trapped in this turmoil wish to be rid of the Nazi and their lies but feel powerless. At the end of the war, she and her mother are deported to Siberia by the Soviets and will spend two years in a work camp. Only to return to Germany in 1947 to a new world, at this point she decides to immigrate to Sweden where she has family. This book is interesting because of he detailed eyewitness account of her life and of events, of the terrible sadness and of all the lives destroyed.

The other book is the story of a Jewish girl in Warsaw, who is protected by her parents from the harsh realities of life in Warsaw and then in the Ghetto itself during the war years. This book for me brought back memories of Warsaw, the streets mentioned in her book, I knew well. The family lived around the area where the Canadian Embassy is located. With my knowledge of Warsaw I could see her travels in the city. She also describes life in the Ghetto but appears unaware of the harshness, her parents shielding her from the daily horrors. Like all children she is aware of changes and understands that it is best not to ask questions, it might be dangerous or troubling. Her 15 journeys will take her around Warsaw during the war and the last one to London after the war. She will be hidden by Catholic Nuns and will learn a new identity as a Christian child so that she can hide from the Nazis. In a city like Warsaw which will be totally razed in the course of the war these journeys have an unbelievable quality. Courage, discretion, fortitude, faith in the future, will help her survive. Towards the end of 1943 she says in the book that she knew, she does not know how, that her parents were dead. They had stayed behind in the Ghetto unable to escape. Many friends and family members will also die, some choosing to commit suicide like her grandmother, knowing what the future will bring. She only killed herself after ensuring that her grand daughter would survive.

All these books speak of a different experience of a deeply troubled time, all are interesting for the personal details and descriptions they bring to the reader. They also show that our perception of that period is often wrong or we have jumped to conclusions with the propaganda offered by Hollywood or by people not really interested in understanding history.

 

Berlin reborn

Berlin the capital of Germany and the Capital of the province of Brandenburg in Northern Germany is over 800 years old, with a population of 3.5 million people, Berlin is a transport hub in Europe, a world city of culture, science and media, one third of its territory is composed of rivers, lakes, parks, gardens and forests. In 1539 the city became Lutheran splitting with the Roman Catholic church. Berlin has a long established reputation for tolerance, in 1685 an edict by Frederick William Hohenzollern known as the Great Prince Elector, welcomed all religions and ten of thousands of French Huguenots came to settle in Berlin. In 1700 on the eve of the creation of the Kingdom of Prussia, 20% of the population was French speaking. Today Berlin is the capital of the new Germany, modern, artistic hub, high technology and research, the seat of world renowned universities. Since 1990 the Federal Government of Germany has taken as a mission to give back to Berlin the shine of a city of knowledge and enlightenment, focusing on the great philosophers like Kant, Goethe, Hegel, and Humboldt who made Germany famous.  The twelve year dictatorship of the Nazi regime is acknowledged but is also given the proper historical perspective, as a horrible aberration brought on by historical circumstances which cannot dominate the entire historical past of the city or the country.

I have been going to Berlin since 1998 and have seen much improvement and changes in the reconstruction and beautification of this great capital city. One project I have been following for years now is the reconstruction of the Eastern sector of the city where most historical buildings of old Berlin were located under the division of the city during the cold war years (1946-1989).  The East German Communist Authorities under the strict supervision of Soviet Russia had allowed the city to remain in a state of total ruin since 1945 and had done next to nothing to rebuild the part of the city they controlled, except to build ugly concrete buildings all identical row upon row. At re-unification the Federal Government started to clean, restore and rebuild all the historical buildings to give Berlin the architectural character it had prior to 1918. In areas where the devastation had been total, to allow for international architectural contests to build new spectacular buildings based on elements of light and openness.  We find this concept in all the new Federal Government buildings like the New Office and Residence of the German Chancellor or the old Reichstag building. Nothing of the old Nazi architecture has been retained with the exception of two buildings which escaped destruction, the old Air Force HQ under Goering, despite the fact that the Nazi eagles and symbols have been removed it looks sinister, that building is now housing the Ministry of Financial Planning. The other one is the old Propaganda Ministry of Goebbels which now houses the Ministry of Welfare and Social Assistance. For those seeking the old Nazi past or even elements of the old Cold War days little remains, the one exception would be the old Gestapo HQ, the building itself was destroyed but the basement remains and is now a museum on State Terror , an object lesson in what can go wrong when fanaticism and intolerance take over a national government and extremist ideology is the new god.

I remember in 1998 the centre of Berlin and the area around the Brandenburg Gate and the old Reichstag was largely vast empty fields, Postdamer Platz was one large open space with weeds and not much more. The Berlin prior to 1945 had clearly been swept away. Today it is reborn in modern eclectic buildings, the Embassies of countries are re-occupying their old sites, competing to rebuild in a style which will remain faithful to the idea that the page is turned on the past and Berlin is now looking to a prosperous and bright future.

The one project I really liked is the re-building of the Frederick the Great inspired centre of Berlin just along Unter den Linden avenue (under the Linden trees). This beautiful avenue was conceived by the grand father of Frederick the Great, as the ceremonial entrance to the Official Royal Berlin, Ambassadors would arrive at the Brandenburg Gate which was a Custom House at the time and be met  by a carriage sent from the Royal City Palace at the other end of the avenue, there they would be escorted along the avenue, passing in front of every official building and Embassies, the Opera House and Crown Prince Palace, the Palace Commander's Residence, the Armoury and the Church of St-Hedwige,  until finally arriving at the island where all the famous museums of the city are located with the Lutheran Cathedral and the great City Palace. Today most of those buildings have been rebuilt and restored. The last one not restored yet is the great Imperial City Palace of the Hohenzollern dynasty which served as their Berlin Residence for 800 years. In the 1950's the Communist decided to blow up the palace, it took several days to do so and it was severely criticized around the world as unnecessary.
But then the Communists like their allies the Nazis (until 1941), were never one to take into consideration the views of others. Luckily for us they ended up in the garbage bin of history.

This project has now been approved by the Senate of Berlin, the Parliament of Brandenburg and the Bundestag of Germany, the project should be completed by 2017. The idea is not to recreate the City Palace as it was but to recreate the outside walls and great courtyards. The building itself will be modern, devoted to art, culture and learning. This project will complete the historical reconstruction of the city centre making it whole again for the first time since 1939.
The reconstruction will be financed by private donors and by the Federal Government of Germany. Private donors can buy brinks, their name will be inscribed on the brick and in a ledger. Already many famous families in Germany like the heirs of Bismarck and others have joined this effort. The members of the Imperial family, the Hohenzollern are also interested in this project.

Here are some photos of Berlin today and of the Palace reconstruction project.

A view from the roof top of the Armoury, what the reconstructed City Palace of the Kings and German Emperors will look like in 2017.

Currently the view at the end of Unter den Linden is vacant, in 2017 the City Palace will appear completing the view.

The facade on the Berlin Cathedral side, to recreate the baroque facade hundreds of stone masons and artists are trained to do the work.

The Brandenburg gate built in 1788 was the ceremonial entrance to the avenue leading to the City Palace. Built as a gate to Peace it is modelled on the Propylaea or sacred gate of the Acropolis of Athens.

Pariser Platz (Paris Place) is now close to traffic and open only to pedestrians as it was in the old days.
On the platz on the right of the photo the rebuilt French Embassy and on the left the USA Embassy, re-occupying their old location prior to 1939.

The new Residence and Office of the German Chancellor on the Spree River next to the Reichstag. This is a new location for the Chancellery and it is a marvel of light and space. Open to the world. Historically the chancellery was located closer to Potsdamer Platz, today the Embassy of Canada occupies that spot.

Charlottenburg Palace and garden built in 1699 was the residence of the Royal family for many decades, the wife of Frederick II the Great, Queen Marie Christine lived here. He preferred to live in Potsdam at Sans Souci. His wife was never invited to live at Sans Souci Palace.

The Tiergarten this magnificient park in the centre of Berlin was once part of a great royal forest starting at the Brandenburg Gate.

Another gem of central Berlin, the Gendarmarkt 1773, named after the Cuirassier regiment, Gens d'armes who were billeted in the square with the symphony hall (Konzerthaus) and the French and German Cathedrals. This beautiful square had been left in ruins by the Communist until 1984 when West Germany paid to have the site restored.

Today Potsdamer Platz which borders Leipziger Plats in the right hand corner. Modern it replaces the old buildings all destroyed during the Second World War. This area has always been an entertainment area in Berlin.