© 1995 Christo & Prestel Verlag

Interview with Christo

Interviewer: Masahiko Yanagi

Page 5 of 12

With friendly permission by Prestel Verlag

Collage (two parts) 1987
Foto: Wolfgang Volz
Collection Jeanne-Claude Christo, New York

Yanagi:

Still, can you say that this proposal is the origin of the Reichstag project?

Certainly, the Reichstag project is the final stage of those propositions. In 1961, when I did the Project for a Packaged Public Building photomontage the idea was to do something which would relate to many people. Unfortunately it was impossible to do it - I was too young and didn't know many people. It was natural that the first public building I wrapped was the Kunsthalle in Bern, Switzerland because only art lovers or art professionals could understand my proposition and give me the go ahead to wrap the museum. If you go through the history of my work the only two large buildings that I wrapped were the Kunsthalle in Bern and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. The Reichstag will be the third building in this long line of proposals. The Reichstag project is much more than simply the wrapping of a public parliament because it has many existent and nonexistent problems; it is not the same thing as if we went to wrap the Capitol in Washington or the Palais Bourbon in Paris.

Collage (two parts) 1992
Foto: Wolfgang Volz
Collection Jeanne-Claude Christo, New York

Yanagi:

The Reichstag project takes place in the midst of a large city. Are there any basic differences between urban projects and rural projects such as The Mastaba of Ahu Dhabi; project for the United Arab Emirates, the Running Fence, Sonoma and Marin Counties, California, 1972-1976, and The Umbrellas?

There are important differences. The space of the Reichstag is a very organized physical area. The avenues of East Berlin, the boulevard around the Tiergarten, the big open lawn in front of the building, the Wall along the east facade, the Spree River, all that is very confined and organized, as in the Pont Neuf. There is much more geometry and a formal character which is different when compared to projects like The Umbrellas or the Running Fence, which have a much more organic quality... rolling hills, etc. Even though it is not urban, The Mastaba is related, however, to the landmark dimension and therefore can in some way be associated with the Reichstag project. It is one huge entity, functioning not as an object but as a focal point. The Umbrellas, the Surrounded Islands and the Running Fence use much more of the linear dimension, or length, which is immediately involved with space, distance, time... spending minutes, hours walking. In that way, the space which is manipulated in that area can be either rural or suburban space. It is much less rigid, more accidental and varied.

There is another important part of The Umbrellas project which can in some way be compared to the Running Fence. It is a module which is repeated several times. The Umbrellas has the physical dimension of the promenade... to see the project you can drive or you can walk; access to the project is by going through or around the objects, while with the Reichstag it is one single physical presence. It is almost magnetic, meta-physical - each of the four walls is very different, but still there are these four walls. With The Umbrellas we have an inner space; you go underneath, in the shadow of the umbrellas and we have the structural transparency of the fabric creating a roof. That is a different special physical use and experience from those of the Wrapped Reichstag. The very essence is about architecture; inside the wrapped structure there is architecture. It is strongly linked to urbanism and to the perspective of the city: streets, avenues, openings.

What is the Reichstag building used for now?

The building was in ruins until the late '60s. It was restored ù most of the furniture is by Mies van der Rohe ù and had been designed to be a large congress hall. Of course that made the Soviets very nervous. Their worry is that West German parliamentary activities might take place in the Reichstag and would begin the unification of Germany. This is why the Soviets insist that the building should not have a political use but only cultural gatherings and non-official meetings of the visiting German Federal government. When Berlin was divided in 1945 extensive regulations were written, the size of a telephone book: how things should be done in the city and how the people should move in Berlin, and how the Soviets can go to West Berlin...you can see Soviet officers in cars circulating in West Berlin the same way the American army circulates in East Berlin. Often the German Chancellor or President takes foreign visitors to show them Berlin. When Chancellor Schmidt wanted to take the Italian prime minister too near to the Reichstag, a Soviet jeep blocked the cortege because the Soviets felt that the Chancellor approaching the Reichstag with officals would be too closely related to the idea of pre-war Germany. It is a delicate balance, always dependent on the international relations - if the international political situation is less tense it will be less difficult to get permission. Right now [1986] in the building there is a restaurant and a permanent exhibition of the history of Berlin since the Reichstag was built, with photographs, documents and realistic three dimensional installations showing the destruction during the war, etc. There are no special events, or any other uses of the building.

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© 1995 Christo & Prestel Verlag