Double decker buses
The Berlin transport authority has ordered over 200
of these scottish double decker buses, with options for around 200 more.
Actually, not just Scottish they’re also British, but Alexander-Dennis is based in Falkirk, Scotland. I’ll also be mentioning some Manchester connections in Berlin. Journalists, to express a sense of scale, often use double decker buses, for instance ‘It was the length of 200 double decker buses placed end to end.” Well I’m going to use them to express cost
Each one of these buses has a price tag of approximately 600 000 euro, so how many would add up to the price of some of Berlin’s megaprojects? The Reichstag Dome - die Reichstagskuppel - is Berlin’s most high-profile visitor attraction and did you know that it was designed by a guy born in Reddish, Stockport - Sir Norman Foster.
It’s a stupendous piece of architecture and free to visit. As you step inside and walk up the ramp, listening to the audio guide, you can marvel at the panoramic views of Berlin. It’s an architectural masterpiece and it’s also educational.
Displays tell the turbulent story of democracy in Germany and help us to understand and compare electoral systems - for instance Germany and the UK - ahem. So how much did it cost? Well, after winning the competition, in 1993, Sir Norman was told that the cost should not exceed 600 million marks, so based on that figure, it’s estimated that in today’s equivalent, the dome must have cost around 428 million Euro, that’s 710 of those new double decker buses! The story of Sir Norman Foster is remarkable.
He grew up in this house in Levenshulme. I must do a feature on him. One billion euro - that’s how much was paid in 2021 for the Kudamm Fürst project on the Kurfürstendamm. Offices, shops, restaurants, a hotel, a museum, a theatre, and a cold war atomic bunker. It replaces the Kudamm Karree that was here before. The final value of the completed ensemble should come to around 2,5 billion euro.
Now let’s remember that one billion - eine Milliarde in German - is one million multiplied by one thousand. That’s the modern short-scale billion, with nine zeros, often seen on German bank notes during the hyper-inflation of the 1920s. It’s difficult to visualise one billion euro but today you could think of it as around 1666 of those Scottish or British double decker buses. Now let’s go to a controversial mega-project, but first we need to go back 50 years and cross the Wall into East Berlin. In 1976 the government of the Soviet Communist-dominated GDR or East Germany opened the Palast der Republik - Palace of the Republic, a kind of people’s palace, said to have cost up to 1 billion East marks. It contained all kinds of facilities: dance halls - there’s Erich Honecker with his wife Margot on the opening night - also beer halls, restaurants, a bowling alley and the Volkskammer, that’s the GDR’s rubber-stamp parliament. The Palast was nicknamed ‘Erich’s lamp shop’ due to the proliferation of lamps inside. It was built on the site of the centuries-old Berlin Palace, moderately damaged in the war, but demolished on the orders of the authorities.
Just like the. Custom House in Liverpool and the Assize Court in Manchester around the same time. In the 1990s, after German reunification, the Palast der Republik was found to be the Palast of Asbestos and was eventually demolished. But what would replace it? After a bitter dispute, the German parliament voted to rebuild the old palace. Or more exactly, put up a modern building with a recreation of the old façade on three sides, plus the dome and other elements. And so the Humboldt Forum arose phoenix-like in the middle of what we used to call East Berlin. It’s a place for culture and science, exchange and debate - that’s from the website - a German equivalent of the British Museum. Former director of the British Museum, Glasgow-born Neil McGregor, has played a key role in the Humboldt-Forum.
I find the recreated facades mesmerising, the craftsmanship awe-inspiring. Some have criticised the cost, though the facades were paid for by public donations amounting 106 million euro. So the final cost - including those donations - is 677 million euro - just over two thirds of a billion - equivalent to about 1,120 of those buses - imagine them all lined up outside.
In 2019 the Humboldt Forum had 3.1
Million visitors, that’s over 27.000 busloads, including standing passengers! just across the river from the humboldt-forum is a statue of karl marx and friedrich engels.
But what’s the connection with Manchester? Friedrich Engels moved from Germany to live in Manchester and Karl Marx came up from London to visit him. They met at Chetham’s Library. Next we’ll look at a tent. In the late 70s Irene Mössinger - who worked as a nurse - inherited 800,000 marks, around 1 million euro today.
She invested it in a large tent, a circus tent, and it was to be used as a concert venue, the Tempodrom. It was first sited on waste ground next to the Berlin Wall. Soon the initial money ran out, so the West Berlin government agreed to contribute. It became the centre of Berlin's very cool alternative arts, music and performance scene. It moved several times and found its permanent home on the site of the old railway station that was destroyed in the war - the Anhalter Bahnhof. The present design recalls its origins as a tent. It’s hosted many famous artists. But the building has caused scandal due to cost overruns.
The final cost in 2001 rose from 16 million to 32 million euro in today’s money around 22 rising to 44 million euro. 44 million euro today would buy 73 of the new Berlin buses. After that, the Tempodrom went bankrupt. Again, the City of Berlin had to help. Irene and one other were taken to court for embezzlement but they were acquitted. It’s reported she lived for a while on unemployment benefit before founding a horse therapy practice for children and adults. She still lives in the Berlin area today and the Tempodrom is a well-loved concert venue, where many famous acts have performed, including The Cure, Iggy Pop and Take. That.
But let it be a warning. Think twice before investing your inheritance in a tent. Now let’s go for a ride on a very special railway, the U5, a short stretch of U-Bahn or underground railway that cost an awful lot of money. It was the missing link on the line between the. Brandenburg Gate and the Alexanderplatz. The new stations are an underground architectural masterpiece. Each station has a unique look, with sumptuous use of materials. This one has curved pillars, I love this one that has stars in the roof.
This new section is 22 kilometres long. London’s Crossrail is 118 kilometres long and the cost is given as 18.8 billion pounds or 21.43 billion euro at today’s rates, that’s 183 million euro per kilometre. So Berlin’s 2.2 km U5 section cost approximately 530 million euro, eurailpress.de quotes a figure of 265 million euro per kilometre. 530 million Euro is about 880 of those Scottish double decker buses. Now we’ve arrived at Berlin Hauptbahnhof, Berlin’s massive central station opened in 2006. This three-level mega-construction stands at the intersection of east-west and north-south lines. It represents state-of-the-art station architecture and it also incorporates an office building. I often don’t know which direction I’m facing, and I don’t think the food outlets are not as good as at other German stations.
The cost? 1 point two billion in 2007, that would be around 1.55 billion today 2580 buses Is that right? I’ve double checked, and I don’t think. I’ve miscalculated. If you think I’ve made a mistake, please post a comment. And now we come to our final megaproject, just a short walk from the Hauptbahnhof. It’s the Band des Bundes - which I would translate as the Belt of the Federation, but officially translated as the ‘Federal Ribbon’, a very expensive ribbon. It’s a long series of government buildings which stretch across the river from east to west, symbolising German reunification. At the western end, the Bundeskanzleramt, or Federal Chancellery, that’s the office of the Chancellor. Angela Merkel was based here, now it’s Olaf Scholz.
We can walk along by the buildings and admire their contemporary style of architecture: very stylish and imposing concrete and glass with clear rectangular and circular forms. Here at the bend in the river Spree, once part of the deadly border between East and West Berlin, footbridges link the eastern and western sections. Those crosses commemorate the people who were murdered by the East German regime as they swam across the river trying to exercise their right to free movement. A memorial to all victims of the Berlin Wall is near the Reichstag. We continue along to the easternmost building and there’s some work in progress. The Band des Bundes should have continued further, as far as Friedrichstraße, but that section was never built - for cost reasons. The design for the complex was developed by architects Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank and it was constructed between 1997 and 2003. Needless to say, there were cost overruns, but what was the final bill? An article in the Tagesspiegel dated 8th of December 2003 states that the costs were 1.78 billion euro, quite a bit more than the original estimate.
Today that would be 2.43 billion Euro, or over 4000 of those double decker buses. And as they say on German TV when they read the lotto numbers out: “All Angaben ohne Gewähr” - “All information is without guarantee”. Always be sceptical with figures, like those spouted by politicians, especially if they are written on the side of a bus. And just to let you know that divided Berlin and divided Germany is one of my specialist subjects that I teach in my German language classes. When I was a student at Trinity College, I did my thesis on East German literature, so I know a little bit about the subject. I lived in West Berlin before the wall came down and I like to tell my students all about it, beginner, intermediate and beyond. I hope you found this article interesting, maybe a little bit mind-boggling.