Berlin’s Stadtschloss-Humboldtforum and the disappearing glass: The museum as diorama

While there is nothing necessarily pernicious about reconstruction, and while the privileging of certain pasts over others is a natural, and to that extent unremarkable, part of the ebb and flow of cultural memory, I argue that there is something decidedly troubling about this particular reconstruction project. And this is not because of a presumed falseness of reconstruction as an architectural pursuit – a claim the FBS anticipates and against which it has prepared a thorough counter-case. It is because of the possibility that it is in fact a true and authentic expression of certain potentially problematic cultural and political undercurrents in ‘present-day’ Berlin: the reconstructed Stadtschloss is a contemporary construction. So, like Baudelaire, I shall wander back to the ‘brutal and enormous magic’ and the ‘useful’ illusions created by this structure in order to try to grasp its truth and authenticity.

I argue that the Stadtschloss reconstruction, and to some extent the mandate of the Humboldtforum, revive certain nineteenth-century tropes, including universalism, unification, and cosmopolitanism. Friedrich von Bose gives a detailed and compelling analysis of this phenomenon in a special issue of Dark Matter that is devoted to the ‘afterlife of the colonial era in Germany’ (Bose, 2013; Kuster, Schmidt, & Sarreiter, 2013). I also argue that this reconstruction functions like a contemporary expression of a nineteenth-century means of structuring perception, specifically the diorama.

Dioramas were originally developed by Louis Daguerre as mobile theatrical devices, where visitors on a viewing platform would be subjected to changing and controlled imagery. Control of the image and the viewing experience is fundamental to the functioning of dioramas. Anne Friedberg links dioramas and panoramas (another device that controlled perception) to Bentham’s (and Foucault’s) panopticon, an architecture designed to control prisoners through the constant threat of being observed (Friedberg, 2002, p. 404). The key for Friedberg is ‘the relative immobility of the spectators [and the] unmediated referentiality’ (Friedberg, 2002, p. 401). More generally, the scenes portrayed in dioramas are often meant to elicit emotional responses to the phenomenon on display, whether this is achieved through exposing the uncanny or by inspiring wonder (Quinn, 2006). Catherine Ingraham extends this by arguing that natural history dioramas are evidentiary scenes not only because the animals in question were murdered, but because of how they draw visitors in as witnesses (Ingraham, 2012, p. 287). By moving from being spectators to becoming witnesses (Hodgins, 2011), viewers thus become complicit in the illusion – albeit tacitly.

Both dioramas and reconstructions stage artificial frozen moments in time and space, they use simulation to bend the laws of proximity and distance – bringing faraway nature or the long-ago past into the here and now for our consumption. Moreover, both dioramas and reconstructions are illusions whose veracity stems from the viewers’ simultaneous perception and recognition of both the illusory nature of the representation and the truth of what is being represented; etymologically, diorama means ‘to see through’ and thus implies that the viewer is cognisant of the illusion and that the lens or the glass is an important part of maintaining the precarious and ambiguous feeling of proximity. Dioramas have long been useful curatorial tools for museums, though they have certainly fallen out of favour. However, the contemporary instinct to immerse visitors in what are conceived as ‘experiential museums’ (Hein, 2006; Landsberg, 2004), where visitors experience some ersatz form of the phenomenon being depicted, could be read as descending from this original impulse. Despite evocative scenography and suggestive fabrications, the visitor always knows that they are in a museum – there is still an exit– and thus, the ‘glass’ is still intact. But what if the illusion became the reality? What if the glass was missing?

The Stadtschloss reconstruction bears many similarities to the diorama: it presents a controlled, frozen, and artful historical image as well as a platform for a specific view of the city. But the Stadtschloss differs from dioramas in that it takes away the ability to see through this image and obliges the viewer to see something as if it were objective and spontaneous. Here the artificial becomes the real: the glass disappears and spectators move from being complicit witnesses to being implicit in the illusion.

This article gives a critical account of the time between the ground breaking in June 2012 and the ‘topping out’ ceremony in June 2015. In a manner not dissimilar to the claims I am making about the reconstructed Stadtschloss, my analysis may also be conceived as a critical diorama – an artificial snapshot of a moment that is always already passing and a place in constant flux. Throughout the writing of this article, various elements of Berlin’s urban commemorative constellations shifted continuously. I have endeavoured to respond to the changing dynamics throughout the writing and revising of this article. My hope is that through clear situatedness – both of the material I am analysing and of my own positionality – the ‘glass’ or the lens through which the material is being viewed will be both apparent and transparent. The reconstructed Stadtschloss-Humboldtforum is scheduled to open in 2019. Future analyses of the ways in which the space is used and how the building’s ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ relate will need to be conducted at that time.

My investigation proceeds in two main parts. I first look at various strategies for understanding the nature of this particular reconstruction in order to see how the Stadtschloss conveys a true and authentic expression of an element of contemporary Berlin through the illusions it creates. I then look closer at these scenes, focusing mostly on the architecture and urban context – though I shall include some material on the eventual exhibition, mostly through engagement with the Humboldt Box, a temporary museum structure that offers information about the palace reconstruction and the Humboldtforum, as well as views of the ongoing construction). I conclude by stepping back out of the project and situating it in wider contexts. My approach is phenomenological, as it gives a philosophical and literary reading of the space, its embedded narratives, and various wider contexts. These readings come from a series of visits I made to the site and to the Humboldt Box between 2009 and 2016, as well as from close engagement with promotional and public-facing material. This study is informed by my positionality as a Canadian scholar engaging with cultural memory in Canada, where decolonising museums is a growing field of inquiry and practice. My particular critique of this reconstruction project in the Berlin context is influenced by my work on Berlin’s Neues Museum and my general leaning towards architectural rehabilitation and adaptive reuse, a leaning found in the work of other critics of the Stadtschloss project (Bose, 2013; La, 2010).

While the Neues Museum and the Stadtschloss represent very different experiences of the twentieth century, these projects are linked in interesting ways. They form part of the same cultural master plan, and the year in which the Neues Museum opened is also the year in which the Stiftung Berliner Schloss – Humboldtforum (foundation), the administrative body responsible for owning and running the Palace/Forum, and co-ordinating all of the various stakeholder interests, was founded. But more importantly for our purposes, the Neues Museum also contends with the impact of twentieth-century violence and nineteenth-century legacies, though its approach could not be more different than the approach taken by the Stadtschloss-Humboldtforum. Two very different cultural memory narratives ensued – thus, in a sense, the contestation continues.

The notion that a generation’s particular fallacies, favourite illusions, or staging of history give us insight into its cultural underpinnings is not new and may certainly be applied to museum architecture, narratives, and curatorial strategies. Museums are immersive works of modern cultural fiction (Morris, 2012, p. 6; Preziosi, 2009, p. 491). The will to reconstruct an architectural symbol and establish it as a museum may suggest many things, and certainly the Stadtschloss reconstruction project is open to many interpretations. I shall give a specific reading here, one that, while aware of the political and ideological background of the project – this analysis was crafted while the reconstruction was ongoing and the memory of the dislocation caused by the dismantling of the Palast der Republik was acute – looks more towards the idea of reconstruction itself. The reading critically examines various claims about the nature of the Stadtschloss reconstruction: that it is the heir to a long genealogy of similar projects (official FBS claim), that it is a simulacrum/expression of hyperreality (general critique), and that it merely raises a question of coherence (contextual critique).

The first characteristic of a diorama – as is commonly found in museums – is that it is a reconstruction of a particular moment in nature or history. Using advanced creative tools and sophisticated staging, dioramas present the ‘truth’ of this moment through the meticulous quality of their falseness. A similar spirit pervades the Stadtschloss reconstruction: its falseness is actually its truth. The FBS’ case against falsehood is co-opted by the fundamental illusions conveyed through the project.

With texts like art-historian Winfried Nerdinger’s ‘Construction and Reconstruction of Historic Continuity: A Copy is No Fraud, a Facsimile No Forgery, a Replica No Crime and a Reconstruction No Lie’ (Nerdinger, 2015, p. 56), former American ambassador John Kornblum’s ‘Berliner Schloss: A Powerful Symbol of Rebirth and Reconciliation for all of Europe’ (Kornblum, 2015), and an article by the chair of the FBS and the driving force and voice behind the reconstruction efforts, Wilhelm von Boddien, in which he describes a reconstructed grand cartouche as ‘Totally Destroyed Yet Authentically Regained’ (Boddien, 2015a, p. 33), it is clear that the FBS feels compelled to defend architectural reconstruction from potential accusations of its falseness as a form. The strategy is to legitimate it by situating it as a piece of proper and important cultural memory praxis and heritage conservation strategy. While a valid constructivist strategy embodying what Eric Gable and Richard Handler would describe as coming ‘after authenticity’ and deriving authority from the meticulousness of its details and its potential to facilitate pedagogy (Gable, 1996), it is at odds with contemporary heritage conservation standards that tend to favour rehabilitation and preservation – approaches that point towards engaging with ‘authentic’ material rather than creating new reproductions (A. ICOMOS, 1981; ICOMOS, 2014; Vereinigung der Landesdenkmalpfleger in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 2011). To do this, the FBS convokes a genealogy of culturally significant reconstruction projects including, but not limited to, the Historic Centre of Warsaw (approximate dates 1945-mid-1960s, though the Royal Palace opened to the public in 1984), The Frauenkirche in Dresden (1994–2005), the Goethe House in Frankfurt (1947–1951), the Campanile Tower in Venice’s St. Marks’s Square (1912 after a collapse in 1902), the reconstructed Royal Palace of Lithuania in Vilnius (2008), and the Changgyeong Palace in Seoul (2010).

While it is true that all of these reconstruction projects serve important roles in their local and national contexts, none of these situations really replicates the conditions in Berlin. The first reason for this relates to timelines: there is a difference between urgent reconstruction on the heels of destruction (when something has fallen down, for example, the Campanile Tower) or in an immediate post-war scenario (as with the Historic Centre of Warsaw, or the Goethe House), on the one hand, and on the other hand reconstruction when the sense of urgency is less clear. The second reason is spatial: few of the projects cited by the FBS required significant and what could easily be read as ideologically fuelled demolition in order to reconstruct them; Khadija Carroll La describes this cycle of becoming, construction, and destruction as an expression of ‘theatrical re-enactment’ (La, 2010). The third reason has to do with ‘authentic’ material, and for this the Frauenkirche is the best counterpoint. Despite questioning the choice to use a rallying point for extreme nationalist groups as a model, the Frauenkirche is perhaps a closer match for Berlin, given the post-1989 timing of the reconstruction. However, the emphasis in the case of the Frauenkirche on re-contextualising original fragments of the church, as opposed to stressing the ability to forge convincing replicas based on the large-scale collection of original material, makes the impetus of these projects very different.

The Royal Palace in Vilnius is the example that best corresponds to the Stadtschloss situation. This reconstruction is an unabashed reach deep into the past (the original Renaissance Palace was destroyed by Russian invaders in 1801), in an expression of post-Socialist nation-building. The Palace is intended to be a ceremonial and useful venue as well as ‘a symbol of national pride […] a powerful reminder of Lithuania’s strong traditions as a state … ’ (Visit Lithuania Travel Agency). The Palace serves both political and cultural functions: it was formerly a meeting place for heads of state during Lithuania’s turn at the helm of the European Union, and it houses a museum. The cultural and political realms cross-pollinate: the cultural sphere is itself politicised, and culture helps propagate particular political interests. Though the idea of ‘national pride’ resonates differently in Berlin and Vilnius, the link between the political and symbolic is sound: some of the FBS’s original thoughts regarding what to eventually do with the reconstructed Stadtschloss involved political functions (presidential, foreign ministry, EU institution, centre for various Länder (states)) (Boddien, 1993, p. 95).

By constructing this genealogy, the FBS build the foundation of a metaphorical bridge to the past they ultimately wish to create through the reconstruction. But these foundations are shaky; there is a falseness to this truth. The genealogy glosses over the truth of the Berlin context; in fact no Berlin reconstruction or restoration projects are noted in the genealogy. The immediate and immanent context of the Stadtschloss is ignored as the FBS assembles a transcendental and transnational context for reconstruction. This genealogy becomes an essential part of the diorama-like reconstruction because it forces and stages, compels and contorts the Berlin context to stand next to comparable cases. The bridge to the past is as little organic as the material inside the taxidermy specimens in a diorama.

The second part of Greenberg’s comments signals a potential challenge for those who wish to establish ‘the good, true, and correct’ inside the palace walls. Greenberg writes that ‘[r]econstruction provides a simulacrum of a past: it may not be the actual past, but it triggers the imagination.’ Several commentators have already linked the Stadtschloss project with the concepts of simulacra and historical fiction (Lühmann, 2015; Pehnt, 2008; Uncube, 2013; Webber, 2015). It is a claim previously made against critical reconstruction, another controversial Berlin architectural strategy (Cochrane, 2006; Hohensee, 2010; Lisiak, 2010, p. 153). While Greenberg refers to triggering the imagination, in the case of the Stadtschloss, the simulacrum has the potential to trick the imagination.

A simulacrum does more than simply represent or copy an original work; like dioramas, it ultimately comes to possess its own truth. In Baudrillard’s discussion of the orders of simulacra (natural, productive, and hyperreal), the simulacrum ultimately becomes the real as the distinction between real/fictional disappears amidst hyperreality’s ‘aim of total control’ (Baudrillard, 1994, p. 121). These simulacra rely on various levels of delusion, obfuscation, and totalisation. While the traditional diorama’s representation and perception are controlled, because of the glass, they never threaten the reality of the real. Reconstructions in situ, particularly those that ‘authentically’ reproduce the past, run this risk.

Certain aspects of Baudrillard’s description of Disneyland, the ultimate embodiment of hyperrealism, resonate in the context of the Stadtschloss reconstruction. It is also a comparison that some have already made (Jones, 2015; Lösel, 2008) and which the FBS has vociferously rejected (Boddien, 2015a, p. 24). Disneyland is

On the one hand, the reconstructed Stadtschloss easily resembles Disneyland in terms of the scale and scope of the simulacrum. On the other hand, where it stops resembling Disneyland is in its depth; Disneyland is clearly staging a fictional world with little care when it comes to the authenticity of materials and meticulousness of details. Boddien and the FBS reject the Disneyland comparison on these very grounds. Critics have decried the project as ‘Disneyland, a fake, a phantom from a forbidden dream’ and described the FBS as ‘palace spooks, the gang of palace counterfeiters’ (Boddien, 2015a, p. 24). Boddien incorporates these critiques as part of the project’s master narrative by claiming them as the impetus that spurred the investment into the authenticity of the staging (Boddien, 2015a, p. 24). So convincing is the illusion that it no longer tricks people into thinking that there is a reality outside of the park. Thomas Albrecht, one of the project’s local architects, suggested in a promotional DVD, produced by the FBS, that the reconstructed Stadtschloss will eventually be known simply as the Stadtschloss, a historical fact, not a reconstruction (Förderverein Berliner Schloss, 2015). Just like the genealogy narrative, the critique here is that reconstruction exposes something true by both its falseness and its claims to truth. Like Disneyland, it is a perverse form of wish fulfilment, a dream of happier days under the benevolent gaze of the palace: Disneyland has its fairy tale castle and Berlin will have its royal dome.

While a diorama’s scenes are chosen carefully in order to convey as much truth about the phenomenon being depicted as possible, they make no claim to being the truest image. In fact, they often emphasise the specificity of the image being reproduced, rather than its universality. Dioramas derive their power to convince the viewer of the truth of through the falseness of their coherence.

Coherence and continuity are matters of perspective and perception, and yet both of these principles were invoked by the Stadtschloss’ proponents as a means of justifying the reconstruction. For the FBS, the reconstruction of the Stadtschloss restored what they perceived as the truest and most natural order to the city centre. While coherence and continuity relate to architectural forms, the invocation of these principles also exposes a certain amount of cognitive dissonance that underpins this hyperreal situation: the wish that history might have been otherwise is instantiated in an expression of cement and stone.

Reconstruction makes strong claims about what Andreas Huyssen calls ‘disposable’ and ‘usable’ pasts (Huyssen, 2003, pp. 11–29), where historical moments occupy varying space in the contemporary city’s brand and image. Agata Lisiak gives a nuanced description of this phenomenon in the case of (post-)colonial Central European cities. For Lisiak, cities such as Berlin are obliged to contend with the physical legacies of the twentieth century (Lisiak, 2010). The Stadtschloss reconstruction allows Berlin to do now what was impossible in the early aftermath of the Second World War, throughout the time of division, and even during the early years of post-reunification, namely reconnecting with pre-twentieth-century heritage (Klinkott, 2015; Nerdinger, 2015, p. 61). For some, Berlin cannot be ‘great’ like other European capitals such as Rome, Paris, and London without certain imperial symbols, for example, a palace, showcasing its pre-war heritage (Klinkott, 2015, p. 49; Parzinger, 2011, p. 10).

The following comments give us insight into both the drive to reconstruct and the particular simulacrum that is being constructed. On the FBS website, one finds the following remarks:

The idea of making something ‘great again’ is clearly a fraught endeavour. The notion that there was an ideal architectural form or image of Berlin, analogous to a Main Street USA, implies that the current city is an expression of something fallen, a deviation from a lost standard. The FBS’s ally, the Gesellschaft Historisches Berlin (GHB, Society of Ancient Berlin), use similar language. They support ‘unaltered reconstruction’ and ‘plea[d] for a revitalisation of traditional European architecture in [the] city […] [by] raising [their] voices in favour of first-class aesthetic architecture in Berlin and against the disintegration of the cityscape’ (Gesellschaft Historisches Berlin, 2016). Besides the paradoxes of ‘unaltered reconstruction’ and revitalising without recourse to re-interpretation, the GHB’s mandate rests on the same fixed point as the FBS’s: ‘familiar’ is clearly ‘traditional European’ pre-twentieth-century architecture.

In the FBS magazine, framed under the seemingly benign category of the physical beauty of the project, Boddien evokes a 1993/94 simulation when a canvas was mounted in the footprint of the old palace. It was a major turning point in garnering public support and introducing the possibility of a rebuilt Stadtschloss into the public imagination. Seemingly unaware of the extremely problematic nature of the statement, Boddien writes: ‘Marianne von Weizsäcker, the wife of the then German president, said to me: “Everything here now looks so normal again, as if there had never been anything different here!”’ (Boddien, 2015b, p. 3). That this historical revisionist sentiment is nonchalantly used as part of a justificatory endeavour serves to remind us, yet again, that it is in fact the aimed-at ‘truth’ of the project, rather than its presumed falseness, that is its real threat.

Anticipating such inevitable accusations, Franco Stella, the project’s main architect, writes:

Regardless of whether one views the Stadtschloss as the legitimate heir of a noble lineage of reconstruction projects or merely as a simulacrum, the coherent order now being established in the city centre clearly expresses a deeply felt wish by a particular contingent (notably the FBS and the GHB) to connect with pre-twentieth-century histories. It is this wish that I will explore in Part II and that I worry is part of a rising trend of nationalisms where countries turn inwards by evoking idealised imagined pasts. But before moving on it is important to acknowledge other contemporary architectural strategies attempting to find a bridge between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries. I will conclude this section by briefly touching on two examples: the Kuehn Malvezzi proposal for the Stadtschloss-Humboldtforum and the Neues Museum. Rather than reconstruct an idealised moment in Berlin’s architectural history, both projects find the means to engage with its layers and complexities.

The Berlin-based architecture firm Kuehn Malvezzi’s design attempted to re-interpret the palace rather than recreate it. This project would have meant a thorough rethinking and reworking of various architectures of the past and an effort to find ways of making them relevant in the present. Described as ‘beautifully naked’ in Die Zeit (Rauterberg, 2010), the brick façade would have given the look of being exposed – surely a strategy for interrogating the history of the site and the history of the nation. Sadly, it was deemed too ‘ironic’ and potentially ‘provocative’ according to one of the jurors, Weinmiller (MOW, 2008), and though given the Sonderpreis (German Critics Prize), it lost the competition for the full-scale reconstruction.

The other example is the Neues Museum, to the north of Berlin’s Museum Island. David Chipperfield and Julian Harrap had both the opportunity and challenge of figuring out which architectural history was ‘usable’ and which was ‘disposable’. Instead of picking a point in the city’s history to function as an apex, like Prussian Berlin for the Stadtschloss, the architects established a point of intervention (1999). The architects halted the ruination at the point of intervention, recuperated as much of the original material as possible, re-established the museum’s original footprint, and married old and new together. In a manner akin to conserving an ancient vase, the seams between old and new are visible. Though the Neues Museum was able to use ruins and authentic material in a more intense way than the reconstructed Stadtschloss, the architects and governing authorities made a clear choice against the reconstruction of a particular past. This resulted in a delicate fragmentary wholeness where the metaphorical bridge connecting the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries was lined with fragments of the twentieth: the museum language found a way to include the story of profound damage without using it as a lens, and was thus able to include the twentieth century in long narratives of history.

Neither of these projects may be considered simulacra. Instead, they expose rather than hide the past and may be characterised by a reconciliatory spirit. Both projects invite the visitor into ‘writerly’ as well as ‘readerly’ (Barthes, 1975) relationships with the space, the structures, and by extension with the past. The question of true and false does not matter when the emphasis is on interpretation. Unlike these two projects, which embrace difficult historical nuance and interpretive pluralism, the Stadtschloss-Humboldtforum’s claim to truth and authenticity is entirely of a piece with its very pretence and falsity. However, it is worth noting that one wall of the reconstructed Stadtschloss, the river-facing Ostfassade, will not be Baroque in appearance. For whom is the modern wall? Who is meant to see it? What does this unadorned façade signify? The FBS makes the argument that the choice to not resurrect the ‘romantische Ostfassade’ was meant to respond to the German Bundestag’s wish to acknowledge the destruction of the original palace (Schloss, 2016). But key here is that it is the wish to recognise the destruction of the original Schloss and not the mandated demolition of the Palast. I wonder what we may eventually read into the East-facing nature of the wall in order to recover what has largely been left out of the architectural narrative of the site.

What scenes are being staged through this diorama-like structure? I argue that the diorama stages the overarching aim of the Stadtschloss project, which is to give the capital city a national Prussian symbol, and that, despite the emphasis on the Baroque elements of the façades, its underpinning narratives are decidedly nineteenth-century in feel. Two key themes, universalism and unification, are re-appropriated and made contemporary by the Stadtschloss reconstruction and connect it to two coherent constellations in the city centre. Both of these images facilitate a contemporary expression of nineteenth-century cosmopolitanism, a clear aspiration for those responsible for the reconstructed façades of the Stadtschloss and for the Humboldtforum that is to be housed within its walls.

The first constellation relates to the Museum Island and a contemporary expression of nineteenth-century universalism as conceived by thinkers such as Kant and Hegel. The history of Berlin’s Museum Island, its growth from a royal museum lodged in the Hohenzollern Stadtschloss to a Freistätte für Kunst und Wissenschaft (sanctuary for arts and sciences), as declared by Friedrich Wilhelm IV in around 1830, is well documented (Bärnreuther, 2007; Eissenhauer, 2012; Petras, 1987). The SMB/Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SPK, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) possesses a vast and significant collection of art and antiquities that are spread over five museums. Since the royal declaration, many museum master plans were attempted; however, none of the visions were ever properly realised (Schuster, 2000). Instead, each of the five ‘houses’ expresses a different architectural style and theme (Schuster, 2012, p. 130 and 138). In fact, it is the diversity of the Museum Island’s architecture as much as the richness of its collections that caused it to be added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1999 (United Nations Educational, 1999). A current Museum Island Master Plan highlights the possibility of harmonising the differences between the houses and enables an ever-changing, dynamic relationship between them. What could easily have been a uniform and totalising architectural grand narrative about nation, history, beauty, and power, is conceived as a concordia discors (discordant harmony): multiplicity is the Museum Island’s font (Schuster, 2000, 2012).

However, this font started to run dry as the Master Plan was co-opted by wider city-branding efforts. The emphasis on discors starts to lessen and concordia, or rather a new sense of totalising logic, replaces this delicate balance as the core principle. Language that emphasises universality starts to emerge: ‘over 6000 years of human history are presented in a temple city of art and culture’ (Polyform Berlin, 2012, p. 17). The Humboldtforum’s collection will be part of this grand narrative of human history, and by bringing the non-European collections into the conversation it both challenges and reinforces the narrative of universality.

In spite of the SPK claim that the Humboldtforum, with its collection of non-European art and artefacts, will facilitate discussion and critique by ‘[f]inding sustainable ways of dealing with the alien and the different […] which in an era of globalisation are coming face to face with each other with unprecedented plurality, speed and complexity’ (Parzinger, 2015, p. 65), the Humboldtforum is still a nation-building site. Even though national pride here is more outward-looking than in Lithuania, there is still a case to be made for exceptionalism. Parzinger, the SPK president, writes that by giving the non-European cultures a space in the centre, the new institution ‘enables [Germany] to demonstrate [her] psychological readiness not to design the geographic heart of our capital in a self-centred manner but rather to base it on curiosity and open-mindedness. […]’ (Parzinger, 2012, p. 393). It also goes on to envision how the project will enhance the image of Berlin and Germany abroad by helping them to become a ‘world centre of globalisation [thus] also becom[ing] a treasure for the entire world’ (Parzinger, 2015, p. 65). The claiming of an ethical high ground wherein the great metropolis hosts ‘alien and different’ cultures still maintains a degree of hierarchy despite the best intentions of the initiators, and thus runs the risk of what Bose describes as ‘(re)enacting a colonial contact zone’ (Bose, 2013). Recalling La’s description of the cycles of destruction/construction as ‘theatrical re-enactment’ brings out the idea of the Stadtschloss-Humboldtforum as a diorama-like site where contemporary stagings of nineteenth-century motifs are made available for public consumption.

Are these grand aspirations contemporary expressions of European universalism? Are there undercurrents of an imperialism that still puts a European worldview at the centre of a globalised world? Responding to these troubling questions is beyond the scope of this article, though the special issue of Dark Matter on the contemporaneity of Germany’s imperial/colonial legacies certainly addresses these concerns (Kuster et al., 2013). As I have already indicated, further inquiry from multiple disciplines, particularly once the Humboldtforum opens in 2019, is needed.

Meanwhile, across the Unter den Linden Boulevard, the Neues Museum reinterprets and challenges these nineteenth-century legacies in a non-triumphalist manner. In the original Stüler museum, the main staircase hall was adorned by bombastic wall paintings that staged human history in six tableaux, from the Tower of Babel to the Reformation. Prussia here appeared, in Hegelian fashion, as the apotheosis of world history. These tableaux were pulverised during the Battle of Berlin. Instead of reconstructing or repainting them – in fact, the choice to not do this drew the ire of the museum’s main critics, the GHB (Großmann, 2009) – the hall is now lined in exposed bricks while bullet-hole-ridden columns stand muted guard at the top of the stairs. The remaining pieces of the tableaux are in displayed in cases in what is known as the museum’s ‘fragmentarium’. Both architectural elements are tell-tale signs of the dangers of universalist projects.

The second constellation relates to the establishment of a contemporary expression of nineteenth-century unification. This constellation consists of the following structures: the Stadtschloss, the Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM, German Historical Museum), and the proposed Freiheits- und Einheitsdenkmal (Monument to Freedom and Unity). Each element of this constellation is a product of post-reunification cultural politics. The three projects offer a series of strong symbols for a united country; each of these symbols recasts the original German unification under Prussia (1871) in its own way.

The DHM, housed in the former Prussian armoury, traces German history from its earliest moments to the present day. Its mandate is to inform and to inspire contemplation and critical discussion as well as ‘[…] help [German] citizens […] gain a clear idea of who they are as Germans and Europeans, as inhabitants of a region and as members of a worldwide civilisation, where they come from, where they stand, and where they could be headed’ (Deutsches Historisches Museum). But whose Germany is on display? There were German history museums in both the Eastern and Western parts of the city, but when the museums merged in 1990, it was under the banner and mandate of the DHM, the Western museum. The museum certainly explores many of the difficult parts of Germany’s past and is constantly mounting exhibitions that would certainly illustrate the thoughtful comment from Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum and the current/founding artistic director of the Humboldtforum: ‘I know of no other country in the world that at the heart of its national capital erects monuments to its own shame’ (MacGregor, 2014, p. xxxix). MacGregor’s remark comes from the book and podcast series that accompanied the incredibly successful exhibition at the British Museum entitled ‘Germany: Memories of a Nation’ (2014). This exhibition debunked the image of Germany as a homogenous nation and explored its various histories of fragmentation, as well as important and unifying imagery. It is a similar drive towards a unified image that structures the DHM’s permanent exhibition: the time of two Germanys is largely conveyed through everyday life objects that allow the visitor to see similarities rather than ideological differences. The final rooms are dedicated to the Friedliche Revolution (Peaceful Revolution) that ultimately brought these two countries together under one unifying set of imagery and political principles.

The second structure, the proposed monument, takes this narrative a step further. Verging on monolithic, it is a large seesaw-like vessel that will move with the weight of visitors, inscribed with the words: ‘Wir sind das Volk. Wir sind ein Volk’ (‘We are the people. We are one people’). But this grandiose sentiment is not felt by everyone. For example, in 2009, on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, posters appeared in Prenzlauer Berg, a now-gentrified neighbourhood in the former-Eastern part of the city, that read: ‘Wir sind ein Volk! Und Ihr seid ein Anderes’ (Ostberlin in 9 November 2009) (‘We are one people! And you are another’) (Rico, 2009). The proposed monument echoes the theme of unabashed concordia that came through in the contemporary expression of universalism I explored in the previous section. Here unity is totalising; movement, while permitted, is highly mediated, and difference, discontent, and dissent are barred from the imagery. The strong symbolism and staged pretence of free movement structure visitor participation, thus implicating them in an already-existing narrative. While the visitor is given the illusion of a dynamic, this only succeeds in echoing the control mechanisms in society at large. But in April 2016, between the writing and the publishing of this article, concerns over the rising costs of the proposed monument have resulted in the cancellation of the project. While the proposed monument formed an important part of the original constellation of the Stadtschloss reconstruction, and thus was an important part of the snapshot or diorama-like representation of the process that began with the ground breaking and ran to the topping out – the reason for which it is mentioned here – the cultural terrain has already shifted. How German reunification and unity will be represented in the centre of the capital city remains to be seen. What will eventually go on the land designated for the monument is as yet unknown.

The palace is at the heart of this unification narrative. It was the site that came to symbolise the original nineteenth-century unification of Germany under the Prussian banner, and its reconstruction attempts to reintegrate Prussia into the national narrative by reinvigorating one of its most central symbols. For example, at the Richtfest (topping out ceremony) that occurred in June 2015, it was a garland draped in the red and white colours of Brandenburg rather than the black/red/gold of Germany that was raised triumphantly to adorn the newly recast dome, as solemn Baroque brass music and not the German national anthem fill the cavernous soon-to-be Agora.

Why this apparent need to revitalise Prussia and turn nineteenth-century images and ideologies into common unifying symbols, at a time when German identity has the opportunity – perhaps even the obligation – to rethink itself within a complicated and possibly precarious European Union and a global refugee crisis? What is so appealing about these façades?

Perhaps the easiest answer is that during uncertain times, we often try to stabilise ourselves by appealing to what is assumed to be more sure-footed ground, hence the enduring power of nostalgia as a political and cultural force (Boym, 2001; Davis, 1979; Farrar, 2011; Tannock, 1995). Because of the tumultuous German twentieth century, this might suggest the need for what Karen Till describes as ‘urban nostalgia’, a ‘desire to find a mythic, untarnished Germany’ (Till, 2005, pp. 56–57). The longing here for a prelapsarian grounding image on which to pin hopes for recovering moral authority, and with which to imagine a just future, is as heartfelt yet flawed an endeavour as believing that Main Street USA actually represents a real past, and indeed a past worth bringing forward. There is no ‘glorious’ past, just critical and creative ways of engaging with it.

Even if the official claim that the Stadtschloss is not meant to restore Germany’s (that is, Prussia’s) ‘former glory’ (Rettig, 2013, p. 1) is to be believed, it is definitely meant to be a transformation of the political might of the Hohenzollern rule into a palace of culture (Parzinger, 2015, pp. 64–66). Named for the Humboldt brothers, it is intended to revive the spirit of Prussia’s ‘greatest achievement’ – cosmopolitanism (Parzinger, 2015, pp. 68–69). What those looking to recover mythic cosmopolitanism forget is that it, too, is in fact tarnished. It was an idealistic project, but one that brought with it imperialism, colonialism, and exclusivity. It was during this ‘golden age’ that, as Arendt tells us in her seminal analysis The Origins of Totalitarianism, the roots for the traumatic twentieth century and its continuing legacies were quietly planted (Arendt, 1976). Without really excavating this ground, the poisonous trees might simply grow again. The Stadtschloss reconstruction and Humboldtforum ultimately build on top of these legacies without decontaminating the site. Furthermore, because of its hyperrealism, the site is more than the contested terrain; it is in fact culture at large. For these reasons, the Stadtschloss-Humboltforum is like a diorama without glass and a staging without a proscenium – fabricated ‘historic’ façades and images are like tanned skin stretched over a concrete endoskeleton.

But unlike the dioramas of old, where the visitor has the chance to simultaneously ‘see through’ the illusion, these narratives of contemporary cosmopolitanism swallow up dissent and deviation – like all good national narratives, particularly those in the neoliberal present – and might eventually lead to a kind of subjectification of the museum visitor or the casual flâneur. Without the glass, it becomes harder and harder to recognise the constructedness of our reconstructions. Glass, windows, and vitrines remind the visitor of the power and limitations of museums and major architectural projects, as well as the fragmented, fragmentary power of vision in its connections to seeing and knowing. How can the glass be reincorporated?

Across Unter den Linden, the Neues Museum plays with glass. It has reinstalled its 1960s-made Bronze Age dioramas, and created a Zeitmaschine (Time Machine) – an animated watercolour installation that depicts the foothills of the Alps changing under the influence of human interaction and has specially designed vitrines. Its vitrines’ dark frames give the objects being presented their own space and their own worlds, and its highly reflective glass allows visitors to catch glimpses of other objects, the world outside, and themselves while looking through the glass at these objects. The delineation – both for the object and for the subject – is incredibly important when thinking of museums and works of architecture as spaces that facilitate interactions between individuals and collectives, between the personal and the shared. Here the connections and constellations are generated by the visitor moving through the space rather than along a predefined pathway.

While a proper analysis of the ways in which the Humboldtforum functions within the palace walls will need to wait till after the 2019 opening, it is clear that those designing the exhibitions are cognisant of the power of vitrines. In an experiment at the Humboldt Lab Dahlem, transparent lockers were established where visitors could curate cases with their own objects, creating images and captions that conveyed how they wanted to be perceived. By inviting the visitor to participate in the authorship of museum narratives, the implicitness in the diorama-like scenario becomes empowering rather than merely collateral. If this and similar museological strategies are deployed, then perhaps the Humboldtforum’s illusions might become more akin to Baudelaire’s ‘useful’ kind.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.