An International Ideas Competition was held for the restructuration of the Spreeinsel area in Berlin, following the reunification of Germany. The site encompasses two of the oldest parts of Berlin and bears witness to the superimposition of the Imperial and Communist regimes upon the German Capital. A conference center, the foreign office and the federal ministry of interior affairs are to be inserted in this context, while cohesively ordering the new urban spaces.

Our scheme incorporates three principal themes: memory, acceptance and rejection. A monumental inclined place, landscaped with a carpet of manicured grass, creates a large public park in the center of the old city, occupying the former site of the Imperial Palace, while burying the mass of the Communist Palast der Republik. Located under this public space is the new convention center, facing the Spree River. The lateral facades of this green wedge address the existing civic axes generated by this historic site. The existing foundations of the Imperial Palace are exposed to view at the foot of the inclined plane.

The ministries are located in new and existing buildings, thereby reinforcing and elaborating a system of streets and squares which accept the initial urban typology while rejecting the emptiness of the imposed Communist urbanism.