History

Germany’s first unified imperial parliament building was the product of two decades of political and architectural controversy. After the proclamation of the German Empire in 1871, a competition for a parliament building was held, won by Wallot; construction was delayed repeatedly by Bismarck’s hostility to parliamentary power and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s contempt for the project. The building finally opened in 1894, its neo-Renaissance mass and four-corner tower composition expressing the ambiguous compromise between imperial authority and parliamentary pretension that characterised the German Empire. The inscription above the portico — “Dem Deutschen Volke” (To the German People) — was added not at opening but in 1916, under the pressure of the First World War.

The Reichstag fire of 1933 — whether arson or accident remains disputed by historians — gave the Hitler government the pretext it needed. The Reichstag Fire Decree, issued the next day, suspended the fundamental rights of German citizens and enabled the arrest of political opponents. The building itself was not used again as a parliament until 1990. During the Nazi period it was used for propaganda exhibitions; during the Allied advance it was a fortified military target; after the war it stood half-ruined on the western side of the Berlin Wall, its gutted dome removed and its interior simplified.

The decision to move the German parliament from Bonn back to Berlin after reunification meant that the Reichstag required complete rebuilding for its new function. Foster + Partners won the competition; their solution preserved Wallot’s exterior facade largely intact while reconstructing the interior and adding the glass dome. The dome’s cone of mirrors reflects natural light down into the plenary chamber; visitors on the spiral ramps look through the floor into the chamber where the Bundestag sits. The symbolism was explicit: transparency and public oversight as architectural programme.