The Reichstag building is the new home of the German Bundestag (to see the old home, click here). Compared to the modest old home of the Bundestag (Germany's parliament), the grandeur of the Reichstag is striking. On my homepage is my favorite Reichstag picture, that of the 'wrapped Reichstag' in the summer of 1995. Starting on June 25, 1995, Berlin was the scene of a unique two week artistic exhibition. The artists Christo and Jeanne Claude wrapped up the German Reichstag with over 100,000 square meters of silver colored polypropylene and 15,000 meters of blue rope. Over five million people visited the sight, observing how the shimmering aluminized surface shifted from grey in cloudy weather to blue in sunlight, even becoming a yellowish orange in the evening as the sunset and spotlights shined off the building. The 100 year old Reichstag, the center of parliamentary activity before World War I, during the tumultuous Weimar Republic, and on into the Third Reich, represents the paradoxical nature of German history. Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the first German Republic from its balcony on November 9, 1918, Hitler became Chancellor there in 1933, and a suspicious fire at the building shortly thereafter was the excuse used by Hitler to centralize all power to his office. After World War II the Soviets hoisted their hammer and sickle flag atop the Reichstag to symbolize the defeat of Nazi Germany, and since then it had stood stripped of its past glory on the banks of the Spree river, right next to both the Berlin Wall and the Brandenburg Gate.
The decision to allow Christo and Jeanne Claude to wrap the Reichstag was not an easy one. The German Bundestag debated an hour on whether or not to allow the project to go forward, even though the German government would not have to pay a penny to fund it. Despite strong objections by the CDU’s parliamentary leader Wolfgang Schäuble, the parliament voted 292-223 on February 25, 1994 to approve the project. Many Germans, however, considered the whole thing a wasteful spectacle. Chancellor Helmut Kohl made it a point to say that he wouldn’t visit the site since he knew the difference between art and PR. Most skeptics, however, changed their minds when they saw it in person. It was not only beautiful, but somehow captured the sense of transition from an old to a new German Republic. Tourists gathered outside the building by the thousands in a carnival atmosphere, took pictures, and even were able to come right up to the building and feel the sturdy material which looked so delicate from a distance. Out was stuffy Prussian correctness, in was an entertaining irreverence. What did this symbolize for Germany? What would happen when the wrapping would come off? For the Reichstag building itself it a meant major renovation in preparation for the move of the parliament from Bonn to Berlin. For the Germany it symbolizes, the entire political system was in the process of renovation. That short two week period of the "wrapped Reichstag" represents the decade of 1990 through 1999, a period of transition from the Bonn Republic to the Berlin Republic, as a newly unified Germany struggles to develop a political identity. Next are pictures of the inside of the Reichstag, in the glass dome that sits atop it (and was added to the building after 1995).