Humboldt Jungle @ MDR, WDR3, Deutschlandfunk, NDR3, SR2 Ö1, ORF1, Deutschlandradio

German radio presents interviews and discussions on Hybrid Space Lab’s Humboldt Jungle proposal for the future of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.

Interview, Dr. Werner Bloch @ MDR Figaro, WDR3, Deutschlandfunk, Ö1 ORF1, Germany & Austria, 10, 11, 18 February 2016
Discussion @ SWR2 Wissensmagazin, Germany, 11 February 2016
Discussion @ NDR3 Journal, Germany, 11 February 2016
Discussion @ SR2 Kulturmagazin Länge Sieben, Germany, 11 February 2016
Discussion Greening of the facade is “absurd idea” @ Deutschlandradio Kultur, Germany, 15 February 2016
Discussion Wilhelm von Boddien & Elizabeth Sikiaridi on the Humboldt Jungle @ Deutschlandradio Kultur, Germany, 19 February 2016

Radio
Broadcasts

Interview

by Dr. Werner Bloch
MDR Figaro
Humboldt Jungle instead of Prussian Castle?

17.10-18.00, 10 February 2016

WDR3
How to save the Berlin Humboldt Forum?

18.10-19.00, 10 February 2016

Deutschlandfunk
How a “Jungle” could change the Berlin ethnological collections but also the Prussian Castle.
5.00-9.00, 11 February 2016

NDR Journal
19.05-19.30, 11 February 2016

SR 2
Saving the Humboldt Forum
14 February 2016

Ö1 ORF1
17.05-17.12, 18 February 2016

Discussion

SWR2 Wissensmagazin
16.05-17.00, 11 February 2016

Discussion

NDR3 Journal
19.05-19.30, 11 February 2016

Discussion

SR2 Kulturmagazin Länge Sieben
16.05-16.30, 14 February 2016

Discussion

Deutschlandradio Kultur
Greening of the facade is “absurd idea”

Moderation by Liane von Billerbeck
Wilhelm von Boddien & Elizabeth Sikiaridi on the Humboldt Jungle
6.50-6.57, 19 February 2016

Deutschlandradio Kultur
Architects want the Berlin Castle in a Jungle
look

5.00-9.00, 18 February 2016

Meanwhile there are construction delays, the cost of 600 million euro is probably not synonymous held. And now that! The construction of the Berlin City Palace as a Humboldt Forum could be greened like a jungle with plants. The namesake certainly would not mind.

“The idea was to make the Humboldt Forum comprehensible. So to show where Humboldt has drifted, what he has brought with him. Quite a lot of the exhibits are plants, and the idea was that you just see them live, that you can be so pure. ”

The Berlin castle – surrounded by the greenery of the plants. Notker Schweickhardt, a member of the Berlin House of Representatives for the Greens, is one of the initiators of the project. It is by no means a party political project, stressed Schweickhardt, but a private initiative, which he himself had inspired with the spokeswoman of the initiative, Uta Belkius.

The idea is to green the facade of the reconstructed Prussian castle. Yes more than that: A whole “Humboldt jungle” should move into the center of Berlin.

Jungle instead of concrete – the tropical rainforest is supposed to lay over the façade of the reconstructed Prussian city castle, the shell of which is being built. It is intended to visualize Humboldt’s interdisciplinary thinking. And it is to reconcile culture and nature, baroque and jungle. After all, a place is to be created in Berlin, where visitors and Berliners are happy to stay – and which is also culturally performed.

“The idea of Humboldt and Jungle”
The initiative is being implemented by Hybrid Space Lab, a Berlin architectural office. Frans Vogelaar, Professor at the School of Design:

“No, we do not want make a traditional town greenery, that’s super-boring, I have no desire for that. And then came the idea of Humboldt and Jungle, Jungle and Humboldt is connected in my head, not Humboldt and Uni. ”

There is a historical example: the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. There, too, ethnographical collections are shown, as later on in the Humboldt Forum. The hanging gardens of the star architect Jean Nouvel are passionately adopted in Paris.

In the Berlin cultural world, even in the Berlin Senate, the Humboldt-Jungle project has long since given a positive response – even though some do not really trust the cover.

Elizabeth Sikiaridi, architecture professor at the Humboldt University and partner at Hybrid Space Lab:

“Everyone to whom we have shown this has been very, very positively received and they have also said that we would donate. And we have also heard from several places that it could be the salvation of the Humboldt Forum. ”

A tropical ensemble of palm trees and lianas.
Whoever sees the computer simulation of the Humboldt jungle is perplexed. A tropical ensemble of palm trees and lianas, which invades the Prussian castle and animates it.

Humboldt and the jungle – that has a lot to do with each other. Alexander von Humboldt won much of his scientific knowledge in his three Latin American expeditions between 1799 and 1805. He worked interdisciplinary, was one of the first global researchers. The Humboldt jungle would now bring him back to Berlin as a thinker, traveler and adventurer.

Christoph Heinrich, Chairman of WWF Germany:

“I’ve just been completely inspired by this visual force. I find a green façade with a forest on top of it, there will be more than a rebuilt Berlin city castle, but an artificial façade, so that neither is historically nor new and is also with this problem also quader. ”

The Humboldt Forum must earn this name for the first time, says Christoph Heinrich.

The initiators of the Humboldt jungle are not so much in competition with the façade of the Prussian city palace, which is operated by “Schloss-Fan” and reconstruction initiator, the lobbyist Wilhelm von Boddien with all their might; They can also imagine the jungle in connection with the planned baroque façade. Their enormous fields of uniform stone slabs would then be overgrown with a living green, which should be a sign of the future.

Ö1 ORF1
Kulturjournal
Humboldt Jungle in Berlin
17.05-17.12, 18 February 2016

It is the largest cultural building project in the history of the Federal Republic: the Berlin Humboldt Forum. But the project at a central location, where the Palace of the Republic once stood, has been talked about. Recently, the top builder Manfred Rettig has thrown the towel – because he is afraid that he will not be able to meet the time and cost schedule because of changes in construction wishes.

The Humboldt Forum should cost 590 million euros; Insiders are now expecting much higher sums. In addition, the construction is nine months behind, which the public has been hitherto concealed. Many fear a new chaos à la capital airport, where it has not preceded for years. Now a new plan has emerged that would change the Humboldt Forum and face of Berlin. And he has to do with a “Humboldt jungle”

Deutschlandradio Kultur
Greening of the facade is “absurd idea”
Moderation by Liane von Billerbeck

Wilhelm von Boddien & Elizabeth Sikiaridi on the Humboldt Jungle

6.50-6.57, 19 February 2016

Introduction

Wilhelm von Boddien, Managing Director of the Association of the Berlin Schloss, considers the idea of a jungle on the facade of the palace as completely absurd.

The architectural office Hybrid Space lab would like to create the façade of the Berlin Humboldt Forum, which is under construction. Alexander von Humboldt might have liked it. Wilhelm von Boddien of the Förderverein for the reconstruction of the Stadtschloss, however, finds this ridiculous.
A jungle-like vegetation that is supposed to rise on the reconstructed façade of the future Berlin Humboldt Forum? Wilhelm von Boddien, Managing Director of the Association for the Reconstruction of the Berlin City Palace (Förderverein Berliner Schloss e.V.), considers this to be simply crazy.

In Deutschlandradio Kultur, von Boddien recommended the idea of an architect’s office to grow a giant Humboldt jungle in gaps on the façade, at least as a “humorous but absurd idea”. This has been impossible, among other reasons, for technical reasons or static reasons. The fact that the plants had to be irrigated at all times could be difficult for the façade.

What happens in winter with the jungle?
von Boddien said: “The building would be at risk of collapse during the construction period. And who is going to water it? And what happens in winter when the green is no longer green? Especially since Germany is very inclined to jungle plants … “. The whole thing is a very “picturesque” idea, but all parties should still remain serious with the matter.

On current financing difficulties, which could hinder the further construction of the façade, stressed of von Boddien: There will be no holes in the façade into which one could plant plants. He was very confident that the millions still missing for construction would come together within the next few years. The Dresdner Frauenkirche, too, had to raise the necessary money just before completion.

Interview

Liane von Billerbeck: Yesterday we published plans for the Berlin Stadtschloss, which in the middle of the city as Humboldt-Forum again, to be covered with a jungle full of plants here with us and in the week newspaper “Die Zeit”. Not simply as simple greenery, but to remind the name of Humboldt and his research trips to the whole world. A jungle castle in Berlin, well, we just missed! “Yes,” says Elizabeth Sikiaridi. She is *) a partner at hybrid space lab, which has initiated such a castle jungle.

Elizabeth Sikiaridi: Where we have shown this, it has been received very positively. And we have also heard from higher authorities that the rescue of the Humboldt Forum could be a success.

von Billerbeck: One of the initiators of a green jungle at and on the re-running Berlin city castle. How I find this herbal idea, I now want to know from the initiator of the reconstruction and managing director of the Förderverein Berliner Schloss e.V., by Wilhelm von Boddien. Good Morning!

Wilhelm von Boddien: A good morning, Frau von Billerbeck!

von Billerbeck: What do you think about it, is this a charming idea?

von Boddien: Yes, charming in any case, but I thought the carnival is over! It is completely unrealistic and fits better in summer holes or similar reporting. This castle will have no holes where you can plant plants.

von Billerbeck: You do not need it at all!

von Boddien: No, that grows from the bottom to the top simply for static reasons! Imagine, we would … And it is about the fact that the donation collection would not run so well. And it is now about the fact that there would be holes in the facades, where sandstone would actually sound, and that could be green. The thing is very ancient, by the way, in May or June of last year I was confronted by the Greens in Berlin.

A rather crazy idea
It is not for purely static reasons. Imagine a brick wall of 70 centimeters thick, into which sandstone elements are inserted, that is, in the same way as Gothic cathedrals were built 600 years ago! How, then, do you want to catch the stone after a laugh of perhaps 50 centimeters? Because behind the stone is an insulation of 15 centimeters! If plants were planted in holes, they would still run full of water. The building would therefore be at risk of collapse during the construction period. And who is going to water all this? And what happens in winter when the green is no longer green, especially since Germany is very tending to jungle plants … So, a crazy idea! Charming, but totally unrealistic!

von Billerbeck: So, you do not think that one connects the beautiful baroque facade with a more than greenery? That could actually be a very nice connection from yesterday and today? And I think when we remember so many plants on Berlin buildings, they do not need a 70 centimeter of earth layer, which grow just like that!

von Boddien: I simply recommended then, we have in Berlin still a series of beautiful Nazibunker. If you would times the green …

von Billerbeck: Fehrbelliner Platz or how?

von Boddien: Yes, no, Nazibunker I mean, in which place. And they have quite rough facades and since you could make such wonderful times times experimental. But look, we’re collecting 105 million euros for the façades to give Berlin its old face, and then it’s just to be overgrown. This is an absurd idea, I laugh about it, I find it very humorous! But quite seriously: you can not really discuss it seriously.

von Billerbeck: Nevertheless, we have heard, and we see this also in the responses to our and the “time” report in the social networks that many people are enthusiastic about the idea of ​​a Humboldt jungle and would also donate that has You just heard again. Would not that be a welcome refresher for your project? You’ve just given it up in such a subsidiary, but somehow you still miss the little thing of 48 million, right?

von Boddien: Yes, but forgetting to say that we have already collected 57 million, and that in four, five years. And we have four more years left. Two-thirds of the funds came from the Frauenkirche in the last third of the construction period. So, I have to tell you honestly: This thing, yes, and we would also donate for it, I know that in and out! These are usually the people who are then with 20-euro amounts. What is very honorable, but …

von Billerbeck: Oh, if these are many, it can be a lot of money!

von Boddien: Yes, they told me I was supposed to write a letter to all Germans, because we had emigrated from 80 million, now 105 million. And to tell everyone in Germany, he would like to transfer a euro, I would have the money … And then I said: Yes, wonderful, but I have 60 million debts because at 80 million Germans a letter about 140 million Cost, paper, postage and everything, and that this kind of financing is probably not quite reasonable.

Who is to water the plants?
No, once again to the plants: It is certainly a magical and very picturesque idea, but with a bit serious we should also deal with our capital! You can not always use them for such things! And what happens when I have five years the plants are dead, no new plants are there? Berlin is insane, has no money. That must be some of the operating costs here. And …

von Billerbeck: So, so much green is not his thing, at least not at his city castle! Thanks to Wilhelm von Boddien, the initiator of the reconstruction of the Hohenzollernschloss, which is now being re-found as a Humboldt Forum in Berlin’s Mitte!

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