Tuesday, November 11, 2008

"Einstuerzende Neubauten: Haus der Luege/ House of Lies"

Something I just found on youtube. It is recorded at the now torn down Palace of the Republic, a concert I've been working at as a photographer in 2004. I still love the irony implied by the title of the song. ;)

In my humble opinion and naiveté, it would've been better to keep the building and just change it's function, keep it as a free space and true venue of the people, for example, instead of tearing it down to rebuild just another "house of lies" whilst building the utter uglyness of a completely new concert arena sponsored by a huge mobile technology company a few meter's away.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

so it's unclear what they're planning to build at that site? why are they tearing it down?
and why is everybody hating that o2 thing so much?

~SaS~ said...

apparently they want to rebuild the old castle, but don't have enough money yet, poor berlin city council.
oh, and that o2 thingy is about as charming as a shopping mall next to a motorway in the middle of nowhere and it has as much character as a wall mart store next door. put that into a neighbourhood with a lot of murals and grafitties, nicely coloured old buildings from the twenties, a playful bridge above the river spree, the wall gallery along the bank, the tv-tower and some russian-style architecture at the horizon, and then you'll get exactly the sore eyes I got when I saw it for the first time. misplacement par excellance. (besides: according to my sound technician friend the sound as such is not very good either, I wasn't inside yet though...)

Anonymous said...

i see.
i've visited the area and to me it looked like a partially abandoned area. a friend of mine told me how artsy that area is, and how historic.. you're right with the misplacement. is that, btw, the 'media spree' area?
i think if they build some more stuff around that hall, it might actually turn into an interesting new area in berlin. of course that would mean losing the graffitti walls. who knows what the city's gonna decide for..?