Museum Director Paul Spies takes stock: “The streams of tourists are bypassing the Humboldt Forum”
“There were wonderful proposals for the palace, such as a green façade.”
Interview Paul Spies by Birgit Rieger @ Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 29 June 2024
Wonderful
proposals
for
a
green
façade
!
I’m very much in favour of working with the façade and have studied it intensively. There were wonderful proposals for the palace, such as a green façade. Nothing came of it. A good example is the Military History Museum of the German Armed Forces in Dresden. Daniel Libeskind has a huge splinter piercing the building, a commentary on violence and bombs. I am very much in favour of commenting on buildings. But please be ingenious, like Libeskind. And preferably reversible. That opens up the discussion to many, not just a small group.
Tagesspiegel

“There were wonderful proposals for the palace, such as a green façade.”
related PROJECTS
related PRESS
Interview by Felix Hofmann, journalist at the Berlin taz newspaper in the taz Schlossaneignung Blog.
Interview & Publication, Felix Hofmann @ taz, Berlin, 27 November 2024
An article by Philipp Oswalt, an initiator of Sclossaneignung Initiative, in DOM magazine 17, mentions Humboldt Jungle, Hybrid Space Lab’sinitiative for greening the Humboldt Forum façade.
Publication Schlossaneignung, Philipp Oswalt @ DOM magazine No. 17, DOM Publishers, Berlin, 1 November 2024
Hybrid Space Lab developed a series of projects for the radical appropriation of the controversial Humboldt Forum in Berlin:
Whereas Humboldt Jungle formulated a strong vision for the re-wilding of the Forum and Humboldt Volcano developed a concrete architectural design solution that addresses many of the foreseeable problems in the Humboldt Forum and that could be realized in the (near) future, Humboldt Kosmos is a fictional universe based on Humboldt Forum that opens up a multiplicity of possible futures.
Publication Humboldt Futures @ Atlas der Datenkörper 2, Transcript Verlag, Germany, 27 May 2024
Hybrid Space Lab developed a series of projects for the radical appropriation of the controversial Humboldt Forum in Berlin:
Whereas Humboldt Jungle formulated a strong vision for the re-wilding of the Forum and Humboldt Volcano developed a concrete architectural design solution that addresses many of the foreseeable problems in the Humboldt Forum and that could be realized in the (near) future, Humboldt Kosmos is a fictional universe based on Humboldt Forum that opens up a multiplicity of possible futures.
Publication Humboldt Futures @ Atlas der Datenkörper 2, Transcript Verlag, Germany, 27 May 2024
A sort of staircase enveloped in jungle thickets, a waterfall and food offerings on the way up to the roof of Berlin’s city castle.
Publication @ RBB, Berlin, 5 February 2023
As adventurous as Humboldt himself: The design by the architecture firm Hybrid Space Lab for the Berlin Palace.
Publication by Julia Weiss @ Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 31 January 2023
How to re-signify heritage and physical monuments with the help of creative visions and hybrid (combined physical and digital) tools? Hybrid Heritage engages with this challenge presenting a series of projects researching and designing contemporary interpretations and further development of heritage from a multicultural perspective. Including the integration of digital technology and media networks in heritage projects, Hybrid Heritage also focuses on cultural hybridity in today’s globalized world.
Publication Hybrid Heritage @ Identity and Heritage, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Stuttgart, Germany, 1 Februari 2022
We need a fresh, radically innovative and solutions-oriented approach to address the various forms of contested heritage sites in a way that is fit for the 21st century.
Article on Hybrid Space Lab’s work on contested monuments, is published in Italy.
Publication Re-Charting Places @ Contested Spaces – Concerted Projects: Designs for Vulnerable Memories, LetteraVentidue Edizioni, Syracuse, Italy, April 2021
What would it be like if a volcano erupted next to the new Berlin City Palace?
If huge trees grew there, exotic plants proliferated and a waterfall cascaded down?
Publication Future Heritage @ Points of View, DASA Museum, Dortmund, Germany 1 March 2020
Humboldt Jungle and Humboldt Volcano are mentioned by author and historian Merlijn Schoonenboom in the book on identity “Een kleine geschiedenis van de grootse Duitse worsteling”.
Publication A small history of the great German struggle, Merlijn Schoonenboom @ Querido Publishers, Amsterdam, 5 December 2019
The Mart Stam Stiftung frequently organizes symposia in cooperation with the Royal Dutch Embassy of Berlin. The aim is to create a dialog on interdisciplinary themes in the field of art and design in the Netherlands and Germany by juxtaposing cultural differences.
Poster @ Mart Stam Stiftung, Berlin, 15 November 2019
Hybrid Space Lab plan is in line with the undoubtedly most important question for contemporary cultural identity: the relationship between tradition and innovation. Their idea of a growing green world around the castle is the portrayal of the idea of tradition as a dynamic phenomenon.
Publication A small history of the biggest German struggle, Merlijn Schoonenboom @ Querido Publishers, Amsterdam, November 2019
The main Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, published an article on the Green party questions on the implementation of the Humboldt Jungle raised in the Bundestag, the German parliament.
“And in order to honor their name, the Greens asked for the “state of the considerations (…), a greenery, a so-called Humboldt Jungle, to be installed”. The brief reply: “Further measures on the facades are not provided.”
Publication Humboldt costs, yes and no @ Der Tagesspiegel, Germany, 19 July 2019
One of the “questions” concerning the Humboldt Forum that the German Green Party (Fraktion BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN) put before the German Parliament, the “Deutscher Bundestag” on 2 July 2019 was:
Question 22: “What is the current state of the considerations on the part of the Federal Government for the greening of the facades, to install a so-called Humboldt Jungle?”
Publication 19/11306 Answer @ Deutscher Bundestag, German Federal Government, Germany, 2 July 2019
In the chapter “International Developments; The Schlossplatz and the Museum Island in Berlin” Humboldt Volcano is mentioned as the example of the rethinking of the Humboldt Forum.
Publication The Vienna Hofburg since 1918 @ Institute of Art and Music Historical Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria, 1 October 2018
How is Berlin becoming a socially just smart city?
The Make City Festival discussed ideas like the Humboldt Volcano at the Humboldt Forum designed by Hybrid Space Lab.
Publication, Susanne Isabel Yacoub @ Garten + Landschaft, Germany, 15 August 2018
Berlin urgently needs new ideas, impulses and visions.
Humboldt Volcano was the featured image in the article by TIP Magazine.
Publication, Iris Braun @ TIP, Berlin, 14 June 2018
The “MakeCity 2018” architecture festival with 250 events in 18 days aims to make architecture in the capital more transparent and invites people to join in the conversation and help develop it
Article @ YEAST, Germany, 15 June 2018
With the increasing urbanization and the virulent climate crisis, interest in nature is also growing. In various formats, such as talks, discussions, guided tours, exhibitions, workshops, open-house events and more, the public is invited to think of green and gray infrastructure in the city. Something like this: what if we were to look at urban space from the perspective of animals and plants?
Publication @ Baunetz, Germany, 15 June 2018
The “MakeCity 2018” architecture festival with 250 events in 18 days aims to make architecture in the capital more transparent and invites people to join in the conversation and help develop it.
Publication Rethinking Berlin @ Berliner Kurier, Berlin, 14 June 2018
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