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Jeden Monat nähern sich unsere Kolumnisten, die Berliner Filmemacher Dominik und Benjamin Reding, dem jeweiligen Heftthema
auf ihre ganz eigene Art und Weise. Geboren wurden die Zwillinge am 3. Ja nuar 1969 in Dortmund. Während Dominik Architektur
in Aachen und Film in Hamburg studierte, absolvierte Benjamin ein Schauspielstudium in Stuttgart. 1997 begann die Arbeit an ihrem
ersten gemeinsamen Kinofilm „Oi! Warning“. Seitdem arbeiten sie für Fernseh- und Kinofilmprojekte zusammen.

Each month our columnists, Berlin-based filmmakers Dominik and Benjamin Reding, approach the respective issue-specific theme
in their very personal way. The twins were born on January 3, 1969 in Dortmund. Whilst Dominik studied architecture in Aachen
and film in Hamburg, Benjamin graduated in acting studies in Stuttgart. They started working on their first joint motion picture “Oi!
Warning“ in 1997. Since then they have tightly collaborated for TV and cinema film projects.

Y esterday, I had a private appointment at the castle. No, not with Mr Steinmeier in and its people are connected with the world”. Now as well, in the replica, the rooms
the Bellevue official residence, and no, neither with Harry and Meghan in some
have royal dimensions. This is not the fault of the architect Stella, the ceiling heights
little exile castle between Windsor and Malibu, and no again, neither in some new had to be oriented on the baroque façades, the room widths on the historic state
trend which is still an insider tip and, full of mockery and self-irony, calls itself rooms and on, at least in the distant future, a possible reconstruction. Completely clea-
“castle”, no, I had a meeting with myself there. Unexpected and unannounced. At the red like this, however, without parquet and stucco ceilings, without panelling and
Spree River in the centre of Berlin stands a castle – as one imagines a castle, with a overdoors, without chandeliers and royal beds, the rooms look too high, too long,
cupola, large gates, picturesque oriels and sandstone angels playing trumpets above wrongly proportioned. The exhibition designers lose out, they filled the overpowering
the entrance portals. It is, and that is what is surprising, completely new. Previously, void with a plethora of technical gimmicks (from the “Wheel of History” to the rectan-
there stood in the same place a golden shimmering concrete building enveloped in gular “Giant Globe”), surrounded by many, many, explanatory texts, everything deli-
glass that called itself “palace of the republic” and, from a bowling alley to the parlia- berately casual, deliberately hip in the formulations. The Second World War there be-
ment, from the ice-cream parlour to the party-congress hall, offered everything that a comes a “clash of ideologies“, the German revolutions with many victims are an “up-
national iconic building needs to prove perfect coexistence but that had to be demo- date of the circumstances” but “seldom come cheap”; during the Weimar Republic, it
lished due to asbestos and political contaminations. Before that, there had been not- is claimed that “crossdressing was popular in dance halls and vaudeville theatres”
hing there, just a gigantic parking used for the Volvo fleet of the political leaders and (that, at the same time, at least 9,000 people had been imprisoned under the verdict
for military parades, but before that, the castle of the Prussian kings had stood there, of § 175 remains unmentioned in the exhibition) and “people dissipated their money
a baroque box with almost arrogant dimensions. On the outside – with almost endless in the night clubs and dance halls”. (Who had “the money”?) Who was able to “dis-
rows of windows and a few triumphal gates surrounded by columns – having turned sipate it”?) Suddenly, after a walk from effect to effect, from giant hall to giant hall,
out somewhat forbidding, on the inside it revealed a playful splendour: stairwells sup- from text to text, from buttering up Berlin to embellishing Berlin, I had enough. If, from
ported by atlantes created by the sculptor-architect Karl the outside, the castle was able to remind of a somewhat
Friedrich Schinkel and – until 1717 – also the Amber Room strict yet friendly grandfather, inside, the heart was mis-
designed by Johann Friedrich Eosander von Göthe. Bur- sing. I became sad, I wanted out. Then I discovered myself.
ned-out in 1945 and even partly collapsed, the castle As a photograph on a mini-poster, unmissably placed op-
could still have been saved but the “fortress of capita- posite the entrance to the exhibition zone “free space”
lism” was repugnant to the new rulers and they ordered (motto: “Berlin sees itself as a place of totally fundamental
its blasting. Now it has been resurrected as a new buil- appeal: People come here for the freedom”). Oh, the mini-
ding and, in order that smart art historians would not con- poster I had designed some years ago to advertise a party
fuse it with the original, has been complemented with a happening, for one of those non-commercial, self-admini-
few deliberately “modern” designed building parts (which stered event venues which had made Berlin famous after
the architect Franco Stella and his contracting authorities the reunification. The admission to the party was of course
equal with strict geometry, concrete as the material and free, since everything was free there. A corner of this magi-
the maximum minimization of all the architectural de- cal place – from the ashtray to the beat-up couch to the
tails). It is now called Humboldt Forum, is home to exhi- Foto: Benjamin Reding overabundantly painted walls with flyers, posters, stickers
bitions and museums and stands so unmissable between – was now here, affectionately and meticulously copied in
the TV tower, the city hall and its own underground sta- the castle. Copied? No, they were original pieces, the venue
tion that one might think it had always been there. But no, strangely enough, this is no longer exists. Despite many promises to the contrary, it was sold to an investor,
just what it does not look like. I went inside. I admit that I had been expecting various which one may call “gentrification” or “greed for profit” or, in the whitewashing speak
replicated rooms in the new insides, the parlours designed by Schinkel perhaps or, at of the exhibition “the vacancy of the 90s is replaced by an architecturally and com-
least, the famous stairwell downright kneaded out of stucco and marble by Andreas mercially consolidated city”. In any case, at the returning of the key to a politician of
Schlüter. Well now, there was nothing at all of all that. Instead, an almost skyscraper- the “consolidated city”, young people had been shedding tears. “Do you have any-
high, strictly sober entrance hall free of details with futuristically shining gigantic es- thing to do with this?”, the young woman looked at me, almost worried. Her black
calators and the Berlin Global exhibition on the first floor. I, looking forward to the suit showed her to be a “guide” through the exhibition, her accent betrayed her origin
“new” castle, let myself drift. First into the “hall of sculptures” which offers what the from Spain or South America. “Yes, that there is me” and – not without pleasure and
GDR authorities had left behind of the inventory of the historic castle: almost nothing. also with a bit of pride – I pointed to the mini-poster. “Why that is so?” Pleased to be
The armless baroque sculptures blackened by the fire smoke of the nights of bombing ask, I explained about the place of the past, the loss of such rooms, the loss of an ac-
affect, with their hidden, destroyed anatomy they remind of the horrors of war, the cessible city in total beyond privileges and properties. She made notes on a little piece
suffering of the people of flesh and blood. And then over to the replica of the Schlü- of paper. “There will be demonstration for preserving such places.” “Muchas gracias!”
terhof with its three resurrected walls bursting with columns and sculptures, the ma- She thanked me many times over. “I go there, I want!” As it was getting dark, I sat
ster builders for centuries having fought about its fourth wall and which has now been down in the Schlüterhof, drank a coke, looked at the sculptures, listened to the mul-
completed, with a façade of a limp, anxious banality. Then up to the first storey. The tilingual babble of the visitors’ voices, inhaled the city air which out here smells of the
former residential floor of the king, now the location of the Berlin Global exhibition water of the Spree River and, to my amazement, was a bit reconciled with the buil-
which (according to the self-description) “shows on 4,000 square metres how the city ding, the exhibition, even the annexes by Franco Stella, not completely, but a little bit.

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