Palast der Republik 2005

The Palast der Republik was never just a building. From its opening in 1976 to its demolition between 2006 and 2008, it sat beside Berlin’s Museum Island like a provocation in plain sight—part “people’s palace,” part seat of the GDR’s Volkskammer, and a cultural machine that hosted everything from concerts to congresses.

After 1990, the Palast became a screen onto which reunified Germany projected its arguments about memory, legitimacy, and what deserves to remain visible. The discovery of asbestos—followed by the building’s closure in September 1990—helped turn a political dispute into an administrative inevitability, and the demolition decision later became official policy.

I made this work from inside that tension. At the time, I was part of a collective of artists and activists campaigning against demolition—trying to keep the Palast open to the future, not sealed off as a “finished chapter.” For me, it stands as a reminder that architecture can be an ideology you can walk into—and that cities don’t only rebuild stone and steel, they rebuild their own conscience.

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