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HOTEL BERLIN
Bureau Alexander Brodsky
Moscow, 2005
The location of the Palast der Republik feels recessed and depressive. It radiates an utter need of life. And the only life known to architecture is habitation. We feel that introducing dwelling in the Palast will completely change the feel, the image and the atmosphere of the location.
Therefore: Hotel Berlin! The central part of the structure will be removed, to make way for a Sportgarten with grass and accidentally trees. The first two floors should accommodate a mix of functions, including hotel reception, theatre and cinema lobbies, cafes and restaurants, a flea/arts market and possibly galleries.
Four or five upper floors should be fitted with hotel rooms, actually suites of approximately 54 square metres or bigger. The communication routes, halls etc. should bear as much traces of the ruined structure as possible. The governmental idea of bringing the libraries and the arts collection on the spot should be supported by spreading the arts collection along the rooms, hotel corridors and halls, the cafes, and all the building in general. Furthermore, the library collection can be housed in different hotel rooms and spaces, making the living in the hotel a way of study and research, and making creating a new personalized hotel room type complete with one’s random library.
This makes the programming of the building, the management of all the respective parts and the services layout a tricky if not a puzzling task, but gives to the Palast a unique feel of an inhabited ruin - a final and inevitable touch for an European capital.
