Matt Frei's 'Berlin'

Fittingly, for a city so defined and divided by its buildings, the central episode of Matt Frei's recent BBC three-parter on the history of Berlin focussed on the architecture of the city. The programme was undeniably interesting - we don't see much architecture on TV, and what little there is barely receives anything more than formal analysis and exclamations of wonder (I'm thinking of Andrew Graham Dixon and Waldemar Januszczak). Like the rest of the series, however, the episode attempted a clumsy even-handedness, transparently an act of bad faith since the script didn't depart much from the liberal-democratic doctrine of East Germany as a totalitarian state; compare, for example, Frei's apparently unironic excitement at the power of the American listening post on top of the Teufelsberg, and his condemnation of the Stasi's HQ. However, in other instances he did approach a fairer analysis, for example in his discussion of the demolition of the Berliner Schloß, a debate that formed the core of his narrative.


Above: The Berliner Schloß
Below: Palast der Republik

The Schloß was an 18th Baroque century palace that stood at the centre of Imperial Berlin. Severely damaged by Allied bombing, the ruins were demolished by the GDR government and replaced by a 'People's Palace' of glass and concrete. After reunification this huge complex in the city's historical centre posed a major problem to the local council. Eventually it was demolished in 2006-8, and controversial plans to replace it with an exact replica of the original Baroque palace have recently been ratified by the Bundestag. Frei interviewed residents of the former West and East Berlins, who naturally held divergent opinions of this turn of events. And this is where Frei's programme was most successful - in its focus on the lived experience of Berliners. In one particularly moving sequence a cleaning lady at the Ministry of Finance - formerly the Nazi Air Ministry - described her haunting experiences in the building. With tears in her eyes she added 'you can only clean so much away.'