vango

Friday we had tickets to tour the Reichstag. Building where the German Parliament meets. It is an historic building built in 1894 to house the German Imperial Diet. It was used until 1933 when it burned. It was partially refurbished in 1960 but nothing was really done until the 1990s after reunification. It was quite an amazing building when it was built with four towers and a dome. The facade has beautiful carvings and interesting art There have been many changes in the 120 years that the building has been around.



We knew that it would be possible to tour the building but it was being renovated. After checking Ron discovered that there was a week of tours when we would be in Berlin. Getting booked on a tour is a challenge because they want to do a background check of everyone visiting the building. If you haven't booked early, you have to visited a registration building where they start the paperwork. I could take a couple of days to get cleared. We arrived in Berlin with our clearances in hand and a tour booked for 10:30 on Friday.



We started early taking a taxi to the building. It was a good thing we did because there were detours and street closures. Traffic was a nightmare. We were able to hop out of the cab and go directly to the entrance. Ron checked in and we were on the list. It was necessary to wait a bit until a school group checked in.
The Check-in process is easy but time consuming. There is a small building made out of portable structures with metal detectors and x-ray machines. We were given badges labeled HFA while the German badges had only HF. We decided the A stood for Anglophone. We saw some badges labeled HFK but weren't sure what that stood for.



We were escorted in a lower door to an elevator then up to the first floor to wait in side lounge just outside the assembly hall. Our guide Ingmar arrived for our tour taking is South along a corridor. We stopped at a meditation room where an alter was present. There was a group of wooden chairs in rows and a simple wooden cross on display. She was quick to point out that the cross wasn't fixed and could be replaced with other symbols. The room had a half dozen pieces of art created with nails. From the chapel we walked to the corridor that passed behind the assembly room. The to side chambers held Russian Graffiti from a time with the Soviet Union occupied the city after WWII. It was in remarkably good shape due to the 1960s renovation that covered the walls with sheet rock. The words are peoples names and cities written with charred wood from the fire that destroyed the dome. You can make out city names like Kiev and Moscow.



The corridor is where the members of Parliament enter when they are meeting. Behind this building is an office building of the Bundestag, the government. During the division by the allies the Reichstag was in the British sector while the building behind it was in the Soviet section. When the wall was built these two buildings were separated for 30 years. A dark line of tiles mark the location of the wall.
We stopped at the doors at the back of the chamber. There are three sets of double doors that are labeled Ja, Nein and Enthaltung, the German for Abstain. When they are having big votes they can make a show of emptying the room and counting in the votes. by members entering a door for their vote.
We proceeded to the second floor when members of the public can look down on the assembly. This area is just under the dome which is supported by 12 concrete columns around the base. The dome which is part of the air-conditioning system projects through this space and come to a point just over the main floor. Since the hall was being reworked all the chairs were covered in plastic.



On the second floor area are meeting rooms for the various political parties. They basically have used the four corner towers of the building for these rooms. On top of three of these towers is a German flag while the fourth tower holds the EU Flag.
The building has a lot of art pieces. One artist works in LED art. Her contribution is a column of single letters streaming from the basement upwards in a stair well. The words formed are from 42 speeches delivered to Parliament over the years.