Visiting the Reichstag, Berlin

The Reichstag building in Berlin, originally built by a reluctant German empire to house its not-so-welcome parliament, has become one of Berlin’s biggest visitor attractions—but it’s a case of the tail wagging the dog.

The real attraction is not the building, but the massive glass-and-steel dome, designed by British architect Norman Foster as the centerpiece of the building’s most recent reconstruction, and a great place for a view of all Berlin.

The Norman Foster dome is meant to take the place of the original cupola, also steel and glass but much smaller and less accessible. That cupola was destroyed when the Reichstag building was burned in 1933 and then damaged further in fighting in 1945. The four corner towers are meant to represent the four kingdoms that united in 1871, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony and Wurttemburg. Minor realms and the independent city-states were represented by statuary and coats-of-arms.

The original building was ordered in the 1870s, just after all the various German states unified into the German Empire under the King of Prussia, Wilhelm I. It was to be a symbol of as much democracy as the Emperor and his Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, were prepared to allow.

Incidentally, if the building looks a little familiar and you’re from Philadelphia, it’s not an accident. Paul Willot, the architect who won out over 200 others, took Philadelphia’s Memorial Hall, built for the 1876 Centennial as his model. It’s still on site in Fairmount Park, housing the Please Touch Museum.

Willot’s design, often described as neo-Baroque, actually blends a variety of styles. Construction started in 1884. By the time it opened in 1894, Germany was two Emperors further along, and Wilhelm II was even less convinced about sharing power. In fact, several years later, during World War I, when a dedication “To the German People” (Dem Deutschen Volke) was added above the entrance he was quite upset.

But by then, time had run out on Wilhelm and the Empire, and Germany’s first republic was declared under the inscription in 1919, marking the beginning of the so-called Weimar Republic, which came to an end in 1933 nearly at the same moment as the fire, which was used by Hitler as an excuse to sideline the parliament and rule by decree.

After World War II, Berlin, like the rest of Germany, was divided into four zones of occupation, an arrangement that soon gave way to an east-west split with the U.S., Britain and France combining their jurisdiction. The Reichstag building lay in the west, and was left as a ruin until the 1960s when it was decided to stabilize the building and make it usable for meetings and exhibitions.

After German re-unification in 1990. the Bundestag, or lower house of parliament, after much debate, decided that Berlin should once again be the capital and that the Reichstag building should become a home for the Bundestag. That’s when Norman Foster was hired.

Work on the reconstruction started in 1994, a century after the original completion, and the Bundestag moved in in 1999. The work actually involved gutting the building to the outer walls, removing the 1960 fixes and returning to many aspects of the original plan while creating a modern interior space for the Bundestag.

Views from the roof include a few other Berlin domes and towers, including first, one of the towers of the Berliner Dom, or cathedral and the tower of the Rotes Rathuas or City Hall; the ornate dome of the former New Synagogue on Oranienburgerstrasse, and the main dome of the Dom.

The building is sandwiched between two rail stations, Friedrichstrasse above, and the new central station, or Hauptbahnhof. Also seen from the roof, the Victory column in the Tiergarten park, a sightseeing balloon belonging to the Welt newspaper and a hint that Berlin’s air is not always pristine.

Inside the dome, at the center, there’s a view down to the Bundestag’s meeting room, with the dome acting as a kind of skylight. A central core shifts position along with the sun to keep from focusing blinding light into the room.

Following the circular walkway around the dome brings you to another, and quieter viewing area above before the one-way ramp leads you back to the bottom.

The exhibit around the base, visible in the picture above, is a history exhibit, touching on important events not only in the building’s history, but in the history of the Bundestag and postwar government. I was particularly interested to note the three posters below, all from the first 1948 West German election, and representing what are still three major parties. All three call for Geman unification, and all three appear to claim all of Germany’s 1939 territory, despite Allied agreements that changed the eastern borders.