Christo, at his own expense, posted a day to day account of the project on the Internet. Photographs and text appeared daily on the web site, for those of us who could not travel to Berlin to view the spectacle. To view the Wrapped Reichstag, click here.
On January 28th 1994 Christo was granted use of the building which once housed the German national legislation and has been vacant since 1933. Twenty-three years have past since the project was first proposed in 1971 and again in 1981 and 1987. The acceptance of Christo's plan came just in time. In 1995 the building will be remodeled by British futurist architect Sir Norman Foster to serve as the new home of the German national parliament.
Christo's aim of covering the Reichstag, an important symbol of Germany's dramatic modern history, revealed the lingering sentiments that the Germans associate with this building. The Reichstag, built in 1894, was burned in February of 1933 by mentally ill Van der Lubbe. Home to the Nazis, almost destroyed in 1945, and then occupied by the Communists for forty years, it is now the symbol of a new, unified democratic Germany. This may account for why the project has been surrounded by such controversy and Christo's attachment to it.
Dr. Wolfgang Schäuble, a parliamentary ally of Chancellor Kohl, who is an outspoken opponent of the project, said, "We Germans possess hardly any symbols which can, with similar force, with similar drama, make German history of the last 150 years come alive. We should treat them with more care . . . State symbols, symbols in general, should unite; they should bring together . Wrapping the Reichstag would not unite, it would not bring together; it would polarize." [Author's translation] For the full text of this speech in English, click here.
The celebrated Willy Brandt, once German chancellor and the former mayor of Berlin, takes a much different view, saying the wrapping of the Reichstag would demonstrate the civility and maturity of a German nation that can confront itself and its history. The controversy has Christo asking, "But why is everything so political; I want to wrap my Reichstag, which I know, in this very open space."[Author's translation]
The nature of cyberspace, with its lack of historical symbols, may make it difficult to appreciate the symbolic importance of the Wrapped Reichstag, but what we can all appreciate is that the act of wrapping the Reichstag has served to illuminate its symbolic importance at a critical time in German history. It's creation forced debate over just what role certain historical symbols still play in our society. That is the proper legacy of Wrapped Reichstag, not the photographic archives. And what is most important, after all, is that Christo was just wrapping a building in fabric.
Brendan R. Carney