Palast Last Ones

In April 2002 the expert commission "Historische Mitte Berlin" suggested (with 8 votes against 7) the reconstruction of the old Prussian palace (Schloß) and therefore to demolish the Palace of the Republic, old home of the East German Parliament as well as a big cultural and social centre of the disappeared GDR.

In July 2002 the German Parliament decided to follow the suggestion and confirmed that decision in November 2003. A much more expensive and technically complicated "deconstruction” process than thought and a civil movement that has been rising in the last year opposed to its demolition and for the recovering of the space for public use because of its architectural and historical value and beyond ideological terms made the German parliament to reconsider 19 Jan 2006 its decision. The new vote confirmed the previous decision and the Palast would be demolished. For some is a logical measure to terminate the old East German regime center of power and last bastion of the communist period, for others a cultural atrocity and a lack of historical vision. In the meantime, the last visitors, the last events, the last winter, the last days passed by.