Fassadenrepublik

A project by Raumlabor Berlin and Peanutz Architekten,
Installation / Performance
Palace of the Republic of the former GDR, Berlin 2004

The palace is flooded with water, inside the labyrinth of a facade city is erected. Visitors use inflatable boats to move on the water surface, accompanied by city guides who report about the latest developments of the facade city.
Fassadenrepublik is a performance that analyzes the process of architectural design and redefines the function of the palace interior. Architects, artists and art historians want to use the water labyrinth to examine “Strategies of Urban Renewal” and explain them to visitors. The Facade Academy and the Facade Parliament are the heart of the Republic. There, new facades will be presented and discussed and the visitors will even be able to design new facades. Alternating professors will introduce visitors to the academic discourse on the subject.
There is a debate in Parliament. About the small touristic lagoon town, its facades, its public transport, for which the visitors themselves are responsible, the gondolas and their problems.
In the gondola school, everyone can pass the test to aquire a gondola driver’s license and then shuttle the other visitors from island to island.
For example, to the red-light district. Here you learn how to strip at the window, you get read from your palm, you can choose music from the Juke Box facade or try your luck at the colour roulette.
More than 40 municipal employees alone are busy integrating new citizens, demonstrating the city and continuously giving them responsibility for their own and others’ well-being.

Performers in the red light district:
Paulina Almeida, Sabine Beyerle, Anja Fiedler, Franziska Klotz, Axel Meyer, Ingo Mittelstaedt, Franziska Pester, Frederik Poppe, David Reuter, Stefan Schemat, Aino Stratemann. among others