Forum of Water (1993)

The ‚Forum of Water‘ was an alternative design to the increasingly discussed option of rebuilding the Schloss on Berlin’s Museum Island. It dates from 1993 − shortly after reunification, a time requiring not old but new national symbols. It was concerned with a reconstitution of the surrounding urban spaces, urban rooms. Schinkel’s dynamic (practically Greek) choreography between Bauakademie, Altes Museum and the Schloss itself.

A hovering building (underside 22 m high) with the ground below removed, the ground free, flooded, accessible only by pedal and tourist boat. The geometry of the hovering Schloss pushes exactitude (an exclusively square exactitude) into new realms. The form is one of the building blocks of fractal geometry, a Menger sponge (3D Sierpinski-carpet) − nine squares with missing centre. First iteration = urban scale, second iteration = courtyard scale, third iteration = window scale etc).

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Berlin, Mitte, ‚Das Schloss‘ Exhibition 1993