3 Decades of Reichstag Wrapping: A Symbol from a Ruin to an Icon
- 🔵🔵🔵🔵🟥*
Mysterious Disappearance: Home Vanishes, Photograph Persists - Home sold; photograph keeps memory alive
Over half a century ago, a daring dream was conceived by the artistic powerhouse duo, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: to wrap Berlin's historic Reichstag building in gleaming silver fabric. As the world turns, so does the life of a visionary, as this dream finally materialized on June 24, 1995, marking a monumental 30-year anniversary.
For 10 days from June 24 to July 7, 1995, the Ring of Codes was enveloped in 100,000 square meters of shimmering silver fabric, a project that saw over five million visitors and became synonymous with Germany's modern capital. The ingenious notion was first put forward by American historian Michael Cullen in 1971, but it took 24 years, marred with doubts, criticism, and painstaking planning, to become flesh and blood—the "Wrapped Reichstag."
From Bastion to Synecdoche
In the divided city of Berlin, the idea initially encountered resistance, being rejected three times. Yet with the election of Rita Süssmuth as Bundestag President in 1988 and the commemoration of the falling of the Berlin Wall a year later, the tides began to turn.
Süssmuth, alongside former Chancellor Willy Brandt (SPD), advocated for the project as a symbol of peace and culture—a stark departure from the brutal image of the nation in darker periods. However, many renowned politicians such as Helmut Kohl (CDU), the then-Chancellor, Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), and Angela Merkel (CDU), at that time Minister for the Environment, criticized the artistic experiment, fearing it would shake the trust of many citizens in the historical integrity of parliament and culture.
Berlin's Time Capsule
Built over a decade and completed in 1894 in exquisite neorenaissance grandeur, the Reichstag wears the wounds of time as badges of honor, standing as a potent emblem of the fractures and turning points in German history. Initially serving as the seat of the parliament in the German Empire and later the Weimar Republic, it was from one of its balconies that Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed the first German democracy in 1918. In 1933, the building became the stage for a power grab after it was set ablaze by the Nazis. The post-WWII scene was no less disheartening, with the ruin standing despondently amidst the Soviet red flags in the skyline of Berlin. However, years later, on its steps, people celebrated German unity within sight of the Berlin Wall.
After a heated 70-minute debate, the majority of 292 to 223 voted in favor of the wrapping—a victory largely due to the tireless persuasive efforts of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who visited over 350 members of parliament and presented their idea to voters in schools, kindergartens, and at events.
The Longer the Journey, the Brighter the Spark
This series of political and organizational struggles, extending even to the involvement of hundreds of climbers and workers, were mere stepping stones for Christo and Jeanne-Claude. As Vladimir Yavachev, Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s nephew, and project manager, stated during a recent visit to their New York studio, the couple saw these hurdles as integral components of their art—necessary evils that imbued the project with political and media significance, granting it an entire new dimension.
A Tale of Love, Loss, and Art
Christo's fires were fueled by an unquenchable passion for his work, which consumed him morning till night. Using an ordinary pen, he drew intensely, his thumb on his right hand swelling over the years to twice its usual size. Jeanne-Claude oversaw the financial side of their endeavors, including selling past designs to fund their creations and coordinating international projects.
The political dimension usually stemmed from the selection of location, but at its core, it was always art for art's sake, devoid of any explicit agenda. Despite the conscious negation of a programmatic claim, the choice of the building lent profound symbolic significance to the piece.
"The only place in the world where East and West collided so dramatically was Berlin," Christo himself explained to the German Press Agency prior to his passing. "That's why I desired to wrap the Reichstag, the only building that fell under the control of the four victorious powers." For Christo, who fled his Bulgarian homeland to seek refuge in the West in 1956, the project bore a personal political imprint.
Post-Darkness Dawn
The project that challenged and sparked fierce debates, and courted controversy within the heart of German democracy, also sparked development in the landmark itself. In time, the Reichstag emerged as the house of democracy once more and today houses the iconic glass dome designed by architect Norman Foster, offering ample opportunity to gaze newly upon the world from the top.
Three years following the Reichstag wrapping, artwork adorned Central Park in New York City once more. "The Gates," inaugurated in 2005, witnessed thousands of orange gates sporting swirling fabric strips lined the park's paths—a spectacle of impressive proportions. "Three and a half years after September 11th, it was the first time New Yorkers gazed at the sky with hope and joy again,” Yavachev reminisced.
Art that Lives, Art that Fades
In the spirit of preserving Christo and Jeanne-Claude's legacy, Yavachev and his team are focusing on fostering new forms of memory—not replicas, but immersive experiences that remain accessible, free, and open to the public. Nostalgia was never their concern, and what mattered most to their art was stirring dialogue, whether it engendered love or contempt. As Yavachev opined, “The wrappings helped us see the familiar in a new light. If we can maintain that, I would be tremendously happy."
"The Gates" offers an engaging virtual experience to the public through immersive app technology seen in February and March of 2022, while the Reichstag will once again glow upon the night sky, presenting a projection of the 1995 wrapping onto its western facade using high-performance projectors from June 9th to 20th, reminding us, as Christo would put it, "I don't know what Christo would have thought of that, but we're not claiming it to be the real thing. It's simply a new way of archiving—one that presents new horizons to explore."
Since Christo's passing in 2020, two "real" creations have come to fruition—the wrapping of the Parisian Arc de Triomphe in 2021 and a 150-meter-high pyramid of vibrantly colored barrels in Abu Dhabi, the only permanent work of Christo's that will grace the world for generations to come.
- The proposal for the 'Wrapped Reichstag', an art installation that transformed a symbol of Germany's dark past into an icon of its modern capital, was not only a creative endeavor but also a political one, sparking debates in the German Parliament, with several prominent politicians expressing their views.
- Over three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, politics continues to play a significant role in the preservation and representation of history, as seen in the ongoing efforts to foster new forms of memory in art, such as the immersive virtual experience and projection of the 'Wrapped Reichstag' onto the Reichstag building.
