In 1992 Foster and Partners was one of fourteen non-German practices invited to enter the commission to rebuild the Reichstag. Norman Foster won the competition after a second stage in 1993 and the reconstruction began following Christos and Jeanne-Claudes Wrapped Reichstag project of July 1995. Foster proposed a scheme which combined preservation and reinstatement with radical departure. The buildings transformation is rooted in four issues: the Reichstag’s significance as a democratic forum, a commitment to public accessibility; sensitivity to history; and a rigorous environmental agenda.

Most architectural history is bad history. Buildings and styles come and go almost in a world of their own. Intent on cataloguing their formal and spatial attributes, historians generally pay little attention to the larger political and social events that ultimately lend them meaning, and frequently change it. The Reichstag in Berlin is one building that defies the conventional narrow stylistic focus, compelling historian critic alike to reverse their normal approach in favor of a broader perspective.

The ultimate design represents both a triumph of compromise, an appropriate result in itself for a political institution based on principles of negotiation and the product of a subtle game in which both architect and client ultimately got what they wanted. Foster and his team favored a complex interplay between old and new that neither pondered to the past nor rejected it, but created a new relationship based on mutual and dialogue.

Reconstruction began in July 1995. The history of the building is reasserted. He took advantage of the full width of the space left between the two walls of the adjacent courtyards to create a still larger assembly chamber. However, where Baumgarden’s (the previous architect who redesigned the Reichstag) interventions had obliterated any traces of the building’s original character, Foster’s strategy was to preserve the surviving 19^th century interiors concealed beneath layers of plasterboard and graffiti left by Soviet soldiers, so that, as in the Sackler Galleries and the British Museum, clean lines, light weight metal structures and clear glass play directly against ornament and solid stone.

These traces of the past are become a living museum of German history. The reconstruction took some cues from the old Reichstag; for example, the original piano nobile and courtyards were reinstated. Foster represents a complete departure: within Reichstag’s masonry shell it is transparent, opening up the interior to light and placing its activities on view, reopens the formal entrance for use by both politicians and the public.

The interplay between old and new is most apparent in the design of the assembly chamber and surrounding areas and circulation spaces, where the full texture of the stonework has been carefully brought out, including wartime scars. In keeping with tradition, Foster also placed his own 3d-version of the Federal Germany eagle in its original position behind the speaker, providing a suitably impressive but not overly imposing backdrop movement systems and space planning were also carefully designed to maintain security while ensuring maximum transparency.

The use of strong colors is allied with a program of specially commisioned art works, most of them for specific locations in the building that constitutes one of Germany’s most important contemporary public art projects. “The Reichstag is both the most tragic and the most uplifting aspects of Germany’s cultural history are preserved for future generations,” Foster described.

The public realm continues on the roof in the terrace restaurant and unifying the entire building and all its activities both visually and symbolically and cutting through the alternating layers of parliamentary, public and semi-public space are the conjoined spaces of the dome and the assembly chamber, a 40 meters high vertically transparent continuum from the floor of the chamber to the apex of the dome. A glazed cupola set above the debating chamber houses a public observation platform accessed via helical ramps, allowing the people to ascend symbolically above the heads of their elected representatives in the chamber. With its circulating shadowy forms, acts as a potent symbol for the democratic process, it’s also crucial to the building’s lighting and ventilation strategies.

Radical energy solutions allow the Reichstag to perform as a power station for the new government quarter. It uses renewable bio-fuel refined vegetable oil - which when burned in a co-generator to produce electricity is far cleaner than fossil fuels. The result is a 94 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Surplus heat is stored as hot water in a aquifer 300 metres below ground, and can be pumped up to heat the building or to drive an absorption cooling plant to produce chilled water. This, too, can be similarly stored below ground.

These modest energy requirements allow the building to perform as a power station for the new government quarter. The Reichstags cupola is also crucial to its lighting and ventilation strategies. At its core a light sculptor reflects horizon light into the chamber, with a movable sun-shield blocking solar gain and glare. As night falls, this process is reversed. The cupola then becomes a beacon, signalling the strength and vigour of the German democratic process.

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