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d. w. ah, in the, in the heart of berlin, there stands once again a palace. it is a reconstruction of the old prussian royal palace that was damaged in the 2nd world war and later demolished the today. it is home to the humbled forum, the most controversial, hotly debated, and with a price tag of 680000000 euros most expensive project in contemporary german culture. his mom was the star one faction, one of the palace facts. while another one of the board for whom, for reconstructions never innocent can garcia, mit, this is the center of the center of the center the, or dedicate the best spot, the most central not to itself, but the world is mind blowing. kaski duty, skype,

even the possibilities in the moonlight for him are in english. all this talk of having a dialogue as just maybe you were looking down on it before. sometimes the past to hell is speech by good intentions. the collections from around the world are very difficult, but they're here. they exist and we now have to decide what to do with the we spent years documenting the creation of the humbled forum, starting with the main, the foundation stone in 2013. and we were often full of conflicting emotions. the palace with 2 faces and 2 identities as quite an unusual story. the ah, i who all this story begins with

a far fetched idea machine handler and she's, i was a merchant for agricultural equipment in chalet speak, holstein. i sold tractor to pharmacy, and then this palace became my hobby for the next 28 years. i couldn't say why, but my enthusiasm never waned, and i became an expert on the place of 6. if not for vill home from bo dean, there probably wouldn't be a new old palace in berlin. he spent decades researching the history on the architecture of the rock original. this winged victory throwing the rece once graced one of the tolls. dean drummed up more than 100000000 euros and donations for his project. but why? nonsense. i know they say 1961. i was 19 years old about to finish high school and i was the politics editor of the student newspaper school commissioned me to do what was later called

a wall newspaper about the construction of the berlin wall. i spent 2 weeks in berlin watching as the wall was built, the marble lived as one chief shut and it was a deeply disturbing experience. i was there when an old woman jumped out of a window on band now a strauser from thank god she landed on a sheet. people were holding out for her, and then i went to east berlin and the further east i traveled the more desolate and decayed, the city looked off. eventually i reached a parade grounds with a tribune that was before the palace of the republic had been built. and it's a buena, they told me this was where the old royal palace had stood until 950 before it was blown up to make way for the parade ground. oh, me. and my paper had 20 pages on the wall going up and 4 on the palace

coming down in its place. east germany, the g d r eventually built its own palace of the republic. it was a multi purpose building. it house the parliament or folks calmer and doubled as a leisure center with a restaurant, disco, tech, and bowling alley. it came to be known as eric's lamp shop, honoring the many lamps and the then leader of east germany, arish swaniker. after the iron curtain fell, the people's palate faced unrelenting criticism as a symbol of the division of germany. once more it was contaminated with as best for lynne was reinventing itself as a single unified city. many projects were proposed across between the g d r's, palace and a reconstruction of the old prussian palace. something entirely new and radical. a large public space with

a beach volleyball pitch around the time of german reunification. the mood was to move beyond the painful legacies of world war 2 toward a bright new future. meanwhile, the home phone bo dean was busy assembling the parts needed to make his dream come true. sometimes quite literally a number of ornaments adorning allotment gardens turned out to be fragments of the old borough palace. parts of its original facade. the grandest find was this prussian crown fill him from bardeen. the champion of reconstruction also proved to be quite a treasure hunter. guy and the guy, it's a secret, but it's insatiable. that's

a lot say sensational. reconstructing the baroque palace was envisioned as the ideal complement to the complex of museums directly to the north, collectively known as the museum island. the home phone bo dean went to great lengths to win over public opinion. in 1993, he had scaffolding built that supported a full scale mockup of the 2 facades. it remained in place for a year and a half andreas shooters, but rock masterpiece, proved appealing, and the 1970 s, palace of the republic came to look stale. berliners got used to the new scenery and started developing a certain eagerness for this retrospective future. the decisive vote in parliament took place on the 4th of july, 2002. the town there were more than a 1000 to plans to redefine this space. over the course of 12 years and nothing

better emerged than this re hashing of the old baroque berlin. and that's at least the facade facing last. they still use, i still plan a $384.00 that vote sealed the deal to create a new royal palace and to demolish the palace of the republic. the east german remnant may have been symbolic for a checkered past, but many in berlin still felt more connected to it than to some bygone prussian edifice. the rebuild iraq palace would not, however, be a replica. the eastern facade and the interiors were to be modernized. rebuilding the palace with never popular with the why the public the 5 percent were in favor, 5 percent were against it. 90 percent didn't care one way or the other 90 percent. he fell into land or death. it was, if the mockup hadn't gone up,

we wouldn't be talking about it today. that was the turning point. if you tried and advisors hands on, bo dean was among those who pressed the start button. when construction began, the site was challenging for the engineers. the soil was boggy and unstable. the old palace had been built on 5000 oak trunks, rammed vertically into the mud. the foundations of the new old palace were to be of a more modern kind. before they were built, archeologist studied the original foundations. parts were saved to be put on display in the humbled forum. in 2013, the cornerstone was laid on board form in the home by forum in the reconstructed royal palace,

a experienced lively encounter with the cultures of the world. h o, a place to explore cultures from around the world. that vision was 1st articulated by tells peter layman at the time president of the prussian cultural heritage foundation. several years later, we talked to him i am really, i have to get his concern off or there was a heated debate, and berlin about rebuilding the palace was like nobody thought about what should be inside at all. it's $4000.00 and he's in the year 2000. i got the idea to move to museums for non european cultures at the edge of the city from darlin, into the heart of berlin as a continuation of the museum islands in give a quick to and in that way, some world cultures could be seen as part of a larger context, i knew even because the idea was met with great enthusiasm. the goal is to show everybody saw it as an opportunity to create a dialogue among cultures is equal to and of ok. so it's like, oh,

well germany was still divided. the museums in dom we're in what was in west berlin, whereas the museums on museum island were in east berlin. the idea of bringing the collect of the museum of asian art and the ethnic logical museum into the city center was appealing. but housing stolen objects acquired in germany's colonial misadventures in a palace where imperial rulers, once resided, caused critics to shudder to them. this was the central and in the luck to both law of the entire project. ah, if mom, i'm sorry, it was all just on the start. i one faction, one of the royal palace back, all another one of the homeboy forum. instead, when you're talking about this was that and it was the spirit of pragmatism that parliament, the 2 together in the him, with the home board forum, the in the museum shrinking behind the facade alone. that's how they gather the majority in favor. high humbled forum comprises the ethnic logical museum

and the museum of asian art, which are both part of the prussian cultural heritage foundation. and a lot more of berlin exhibition. the humble lab of the humble university spaces for events and special exhibitions, as well as areas devoted to the history of the place. the total source base amounts to 44000 square meters about the same as all the museums of museum island put together was like the roof of the for a is made of steel and glass. geothermal energy is used for heating and cooling and construction terms. the building is very modern, but traditional craftsmanship has also had an important role to play. for a long time,

it was hard to imagine what the interior might one day look like. the collections of the 2 museums exhibition about the history of the site all have to be presented to the public in an appealing and engaging manner. that's the task of the scene aug. refer tim than to media and say, any of this he meant to see no good is someone who designs and gives form to an exhibition that it involves many disciplines. interior design, communication design, graphic design, media interaction design for it's about telling stories, bringing them to life story and saying it's a complex project to try to bring together so many different and overlapping stories and histories. the palace does not merely house exhibits, it is and exhibit in its own right part of the original foundations feature. in the exhibition,

elaborating the sites long history. the whole here was formed when the palace was blown up. dynamite was placed here to bring it down. how do we share this with our business? if you come in and see us than brazil, how's that as well? it was a real explosion. i think the way to presented is through film mish josh to get planned that we are we planning to put a walkway over the old floor floating a little bit above it. so visitors have a path to follow through the sellers because we joined tim that amelia, to visit the 2 museums in the dunham district. moving the displays to the humbled forum was also meant to actively address the often problematic history of the collections and phishing this on responders standing and respecting other cultures . it's important for all of us on what role da museums play in that understanding. and that's what interests me into as yet. viola koenig specializes

in these crucial questions. she was appointed director of the ethan logical museum in 2001, and asked to develop a more sensitive and open approach to dealing with the colonial history of the collections. she is not happy about how it turned out via hum for a long time. we kept hoping that we would be given an empty white space. outside was the palace facade, and inside we just wanted a white cube. but as planning progressed, the palace took up more and more space. we often saw how the people developing content for the humbled forum struggled with the projects internal contradictions. tensions and complex structures. month is august, us humbled for under sign of some say the humbled for him is such a challenging project because of its size. for me, it was more because of the structures on management, the bosses kept changing as the institution develop,

eons these institutes on emma under spot and in hardly sometimes there was a lack of direction of a total absence of clear goals as a failure of communication with various communities as to what the project was really about. the process does act. that was all supposed to change in 2015, surrounded by bare walls and scaffolding. federal commissioner for culture, monica glitters, presented niel mcgregor, the popular former director of the british museum in london, which meant to win over public favour as head of the humboldt forums founding directorate. but in the end, even he could not provide what the forum needed a new way of doing museums authorization. it did of all people, the former director of the world's biggest imperialist colonial museum, the british museum, was appointed head of the humbled forum. i don't know what he had in mind or if he

had anything particular in mind. but the one thing that was central to our agenda was what he couldn't provide. and that was a change of narrative, a presentation of multiple perspectives more to perspective. i don't know how many times i explained this to neil mcgregor in words and images of i always had the impression he didn't care martin, i'm finished by then any major changes to the humbled forum. we're pretty much out of the question. as plans for the interior had been almost finalized. mcgregor stayed on the job for 3 years. he did not fulfill the high expectations. the history of berlin is also featured at the humbled forum species curator of the berlin exhibition. he's from the netherlands and used to be director of the amsterdam city museum. so he contributes an outsider's perspective

. he has followed the critical discussion in germany about the humbled forum. i let the cookie come, i was almost warm comes. i can appreciate all the criticism of the humble forum will carrying down the palace of the republic with no efforts to restore any of it . i understand the dismay and then deciding to reconstruct the old palace how annoying, why not build something new in moderns. why build a face? on the other hand, how amazing is this unusual grand gesture on the part of germany to devote its best site at the center of the center of the center, not to itself, but to the world. that's just, that's mind blowing. it's easy for me to defend that decision because i'm not german. and as an outsider, i can say, well done my complement as to content, i am responsible for 4 and a half 1000 square meters. of the idea is that me outside is berlin. there the world, we are the bridge between berlin and the world lean or the weight as we track the development of the project. we couldn't help thinking that there wasn't really one single humbled forum,

but many different humbled forums with different protagonists pursuing different visions. that's close to steven, this is what all the buzzards about. this is the space for the berlin exhibit for it has 3 side with big, beautiful, high ceiling rooms must be up and i could them. and that we can think of this area as a unit. the exhibition starts here. here is the university, then comes the berlin exhibition, then upstairs, the no logical museum, asian art and the roof terrorist. finally, this creature has come to explore its new home. after completion, it took up residence in the humboldt lab voice. when visited vitally the roots of what university can be found in the early modern

cabinets of art and curiosities in the old royal palace that stood on this very site in. we're not interested in visual appeal or how attractive and object may be, but in knowledge. how come must have been, you know, still have many visitors will be coming from the berlin exhibition. exiting it, they are all set. and here is the entrance to our exhibition of any official. many people will come and see fish. the deeper meaning of this swarm of fish is that in a playful manner, that shows how we are part of the world around us. and what we do with human has an impact on the world. the interactive swarm represents current research into swarm intelligence. the concept has found application in areas such as researching social networks, intelligent traffic control, and even the behavior of museum visitors the humble

lab of humble university hopes its movable displays and complex video projections will get the public interested in the science behind. it can find i to department has progressive when i was a great fan of the palace of the republic. and i think it's really regretable that not even part of it was preserved. but i consider that a great crime for the movies. but i'm also excited about the opportunities of the home boyd falling onto, to dream up and create new kinds of exhibition noise in the high tech inside fake the rock on the outside from coastal was commission to recreate the ornate decorative rock crests above 2 portals. it took him a year and a half, his enthusiasm for the beauty and craftsmanship that goes into every element of the facade is contagious,

was the top priority is vitality bringing the rope era to life for the visitors. he had no original plans to work from. none had survived as a cup in spring for us to move for him. i have photos that show what i have to do with it. they are my reference point as i think about volumes and their impact. photos are 2 dimensional, not 3. so i have to work out the depth and volumes myself because he started by creating a model with clay. this was coded in silicon to create a mold which was then cast in plaster, to serve as a model for the stone sculptures. the reconstruction project gave a boost to various artistical trade. 3000 blocks of sandstone had to be sculpted for the new old facade all financed by donations. essentially, it's a difficult task. we don't only have newly sculpted pieces for the reconstruction. we also have original fragment of the problem is will they fit together given all

the fine differences at the edges? and we're talking about 10 or 12 tons and it all has to come together as one piece in the architect of this hybrid building at the italian front, costello, he says, people need to see the royal palace in order to fully experience berlin's historical cityscape. that was centered around it. in mark adorned a middle courtyard of 3 prong. costello designed them so that 2 of them were accessible at all times, making them part of public urban space. oh, the courtyard. the roofed for the entrance hall for visitors. oh, i, eastern facade is modern and design and made of pre cast concrete components.

postwar prefabs, are a common site in berlin. but the juxtaposition of prefab and brock is new in ah, has been directed both at the modern architecture of the building and that the detailed reconstruction of iraq elements, the reconstructed dome, is not made of bricks. its frame is composed of 242 tons steel girders at the technical level, old and new function together well. but the modern parts of the building simply co exist with the rock looking parts, letting them basking glory without any commentary or even tension. we consider that a major failing of the humbled forum the architecture should have taken up a question of what it means to display artifacts from other cultures here. if it

had somehow subverted the imperial pomp, perhaps with powerful modern elements, the forum might have acquired a different, more open symbolic significance. and perhaps assuaged those critical of the idea of reconstructing the old palace in the 1st place. directly beneath the dome or some of the most spectacular spaces and exhibits buddhist wall paintings from caves in what is now china? yeah, yeah, yeah. even here it is. got these are the, you are the reconstructed, incomplete cave, who, the division of the visitors will have the feeling. they are actually inside a cave in either one. so that's the challenge we face. how do you exhibit a cave? the cave is a negative space, and that's why we came up with the idea of recreating the landscape and displayed in what looks like their original setting. the beautiful paintings inspire

a sense of all one rarely feels in an exhibition buddhist monks meditated among these images. one and a half 1000 years ago. even in a museum, the cave of the ring bearing doves feels deeply spiritual. the 2 museums started migrating from dial them to the humbled forum in 2016. what was left behind was re fashioned into the dollar research campus. more than $20000.00 artifacts were moved, including anything from southern pacific boats to tea cups. when this boat was moved to the humbled forum, it was not yet commonly known that its acquisition involved, colonial era. cripes, who's slowly the interior, has been taking shape. street artists created graffiti at the entrance to the

berlin exhibition. their work covers all the major seams of the forum from alexander fun. humbled travels to bismarck campaigns to seize colonies. i, wow. this room is the starting point for expeditions through the history and stories of berlin, enhanced with digital and interactive technology. so this is a late 1900 century kaiser panorama looking through the i pieces, visitors, enjoy vivid 3 dimensional color images of the world. or at least of what they were meant to see if the world dates to the period when the german empire sought to expand its territory. capturing colonies by force along the way. artifacts from around the world were pillaged to be put on display back home. that too often involved force. it's

a difficult legacy. the humbled forum has yet to address the ethnic logical museum was founded in 1873 by ad, off boston. as a ship's doctor. he witnessed the brutal eradication of indigenous peoples. through the course of colonialism. he considered the museum as a way to secure the material legacy of endangered cultures are hard because they're, they're spanish. this, in today's perspective, it's very, very hard to appreciate the mindset of the key players back then. they were no doubt motivated by scientists, curiosity about people and cultures around the world. but von, those who financed it all were motivated by the colonialist drive to appropriate the world for raw materials. and they set the terms of reference even for those whose aims were noble and gall. early taylor half town cut off bossy and wanted to create

a museum where human kinds common heritage could be researched. sadly, he failed, but what he sought to achieve resembles the basic idea behind the humbled form. can that vision still be fulfilled today? and if so, how? in 2017. we met jonathan fine. who would later had the logical museum when he was curating an exhibition entitled beyond compare. it posed the uncomfortable question, whether it was a colonialist mindset that led us to characterize african art as cold objects and christian cult objects as art. these collections are things that when we look at them today are very difficult. i want to say to colleague who said, if we looked at these museums today, we would probably never billed them. and if we looked at these collections today,

we would probably never assemble them, but they're here. they exist and we now have to decide what to do with them for the interview. so what will the humbled forum do with the problematic collections? it has been built to display to find out, we toured the exhibition space in the humbled forum in 2021 with jonathan, fine and tim than to media. so this is the head us to where we're going to be putting the throne from the kingdom. remarkable object. it brings to a point, a lot of this sort of questions that people have about the colonial era cation point. a throne is degrade the new old palace, but it did not come from the whole southern dynasty. rather it belonged to king, enjoy of bar mom of western cameroon. i always thought it was a gift to the kaiser. is that not the story?

well, it is, but its gifts are complicated. we know that he really didn't want to give up the throne and be what went through his mind. what calculation did he have to make? was he going to lose face if he didn't give something important to the cause or was he going to lose power? if he didn't give something important to the cause of a right royal gift from one ruler to another or a tribute, it had to be paid to the colonial master film. the 2nd and 2017. we went with jonathan, fine to cameroon, to find out more about the throne. what do people there? think of the country's colonial passed. if the throne had not gone to berlin, it would now belong to this man, the sultan of bomb sim. bumble enjoy

a grandson of king enjoy. who reign during the period of german colonial rule. ah, the looms director of cultural affairs works closely with the sultan. the throne is a sensitive subject. he tells us. ah, ah, shall we keep back? no day passes without us having to talk about the throne. tourists who come here always ask you, what is the throne of the king of by moon doing in berlin? and then ah,

some say the german stole the throne on either one of those think it wasn't a gift or if it was one, then a full to foresee a common police. what do you say to that valley? we think that the moon people maintained a marriage of convenience with the germans back then. how would i characterize the relationship nowadays? who are they divorced in the ministry? don't we hope not. we don't. we very much hope that ties will be revived through greater cultural cooperation. feel bad and you can reach of

the germans will appreciate the mutual benefits of helping us preserve our cultural heritage. the throne in berlin is an ambassador of our rich culture. returning your life to me, you know, one of the things i took away from our discussions was the clear wish for germany to live up to it's historical promise of friendship. and i think one of the things we can do is make that expectation clearer to the german public. and to make that expectation clearer. to german politicians in berlin, we go to savvy contemporary art space to meet its director boulevard, to comb. he's a renown curator who has also put together shows that the famous documentary art

exhibition in costume. he's interested in the impact of colonialism and the way europe and museums display non european cultures on to her. and the cong grew up a 100 kilometers from, from bon and has heard the story of the throne ever since he was a child. the cultural ambassador of germany to the us doesn't belong to the us. that belongs to germany, right? then we should apply if we want to use analogy of the culture ambassador didn't want to belong to the people from one, right? so i'm all for cultural ambassadors. so like jimmy sent, also a very important work from it's, you know, culture to come as a culture ambassador. i wish you put it in the band museum as well. it is fine. but until we do that, it's just a one way street. so if we want to look at shared heritage,

let's shit everybody's every day and not just some people and the others not. what should happen to turn in the future for me is very much an open question, because like many of the things in the humble forum, we now have this past. we've looked into it, we are looking into it. and as we know more about it, we may want to make different decisions about what should happen to the objects for the future. should they go back? should they stay in germany? the debate about the humbled forum has brought such difficult questions to the attention of a wider public. in preparation for the move from dalim, jonathan fine and restores inspected some of the most highly contested items in the in the logical museum. the beneath bronzes, the masterpieces from the wild kingdom of beneath were looted by british forces during a punitive palace rate in $897.00 in what is now nigeria. later, many pieces were eventually sold. what the humbled form does with the bronze and ivory works is

a key test of its avowed commitment to explore new ideas and truly pursue cultural exchange with other countries. as equals for decades, nigeria has demanded the return of its looted treasures. it wasn't until 2021 that any progress was made regarding the benign bronzes. how does restitution work? and why are museums so often reluctant to for fun? barracka missing that procedure for returning items looks like that is to, to visit with the board of the prussian cultural heritage foundation has to make the decisions director towards the president or museum director can't do. so it really has to be the top level bodies default isn't. and then there's the question of the recipient is too clear for any object to be arrested if we have to determine who the rightful owner and i was on the status of the national museum to a local community. and it can get complicated. but what i can say is that we shall get back to beneath bronzes and sort of keep some will go to

a new foundation being set up in nigeria. other items will remain on display in the humble forum. the question is, how will these objects with such a troubled past be presented to the public? this is where this multimedia program, which is really a multiscreen film, right, will be presented. and all the voices from europe and africa, including the oba and scholars from africa, will talk about the provenance of the benny bronzes. the idea is using very simple questions to get people to open up and talk openly. what are the been in bronzes? what do they mean to you? what should happen to them in the future? and then to really hear what people have to say about that topic. this concept of really exhibiting the discussion of provenance and the work of the been in dialogue group was already there when i started 10 years ago. and that's been really the

central theme of this entire room of the exhibit. what is the future? what should happen to these objects? that's an openness that i really treasure about this process. cultural institutions should be relevant to society. the need to address the colonial past is not only a weighty responsibility, but also an opportunity for museums to take a leading role in an important societal debate. as for the humboldt forum, the symbolic significance of the new old royal palace is always in the way a group of enormous angels exemplify the problem. they form part of the lantern on top of the palace dome and support a huge golden cross. they were formed in wax than coated in clay to create a mould for pouring in bronze at a temperature of $1150.00 degrees celsius. that is, by the way,

the very same technique used to create to beneath bronzes the christian seemed dome has proved controversial. inscribed, rounded space is a quote from the new testament that at the name of jesus, every knee shall bow of those in heaven. and of those on earth and of those under the earth. in may 2020, the cross was mounted on top. it's almost 5 meters tall and unmistakable projection of faith and power. it too was financed by a hefty donation. it may be a historically accurate replica, but it highlights the disparity between the buildings, retrospective, exterior and the forums. progressive agenda. the cross as an ideological statement, belies the pluralist vision of the forum. just a few meters beneath the cross under the dome buddhist painting speak of the

peaceful power of meditation. sincere efforts to promote understanding among cultures are overshadowed by such unequivocal imagery. hardwood door glow is general director of the humboldt forum is lava. does he this side? each ear has to find its own answers to such questions in architectural terms for the fullness feel halter built in view. today i expect we would have gone with a different architectural solution. lindsey had us. it is because the only about impala and i'm sure the discussion about the palace of the republic would have been very different from what it was right after the fall of the berlin wall. the florida, 3 years after, if you'd like, i think we much more aware nowadays of the implication for the messaging of a fixing royal crowns to facade will sticking crosses to talk her rock inscriptions . the reconstruction is never innocent. and when foolishly constantly young, it's a lawyer in late 2020. the humboldt forum had a digital opening and revealed the 1st glimpses of its interior who was eman. they're humbled for me on it's

a great pleasure to welcome the humboldt for him to the world of museums, the concise lines they have. it has yet to prove itself to a steady stream of visitors and rotating events. viewed by yvonne as humboldt for him is the surface onto which many varied ideas and wishes projected we are not a museum, but a cultural, dental, dental. oh, the huddled form, join an ensemble of institutions from the museum island, but will a truly be a meeting place for cultures from around the world. perhaps it might start out as a place where we address our historical blind spots. oh, i mean setting off on an adventure, the humbled forum has to talk about this adventure, even though we don't know where it will take us. the

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