Few places in Europe have been object to such passionate controversy and discussion in the last twenty years as
Berlin's "Schlossplatz“.
Now, after the decision to reconstruct the baroque “Stadtschloss” and the final remains of the “Palace of the Republic” have been demolished, we are in a strange interim moment of a spatial and conceptional vacuum.
This vacuum offers the chance to take a new look at the “Schlossplatz”, to see it as what it actually is: a huge
empty site in the center of Berlin.
“Locus Ludens” focuses on this enormous spatial potential. Instead of leading a discussion about facades, this project tries to initiate a discussion about space.
In a city which is, probably more than any other metropolis,characterised by dicontinuities, improvisation and experimentation, “Locus Ludens” offers a space to explore what the “Schlossplatz” square was, is or could become.
Certain singular rooms of the “Stadtschloss” and the “Palace of the Republic” are rebuild in the sense of a
temporary reconstruction and create, as they remain at their original position, a new room structure that are connected to each other by a system of ways. This complex structure of rooms and ways, that can be switched
together individually according to its specific purpose, constitutes a sort of stage, a temporary context, for Berlin's performative culture.
The different qualities of the recreated rooms produce a sort of spatial determination, but not a determination of usage: it is open to debate and discussion how and by whom the rooms are used. So, the currysausagestand in a baroque parade room can be found there as well as the chamber concert in the former plenary hall of the “Palace of the Republic”.
In the sense of Huizinga's “Homo ludens”, Berlin's “Schlossplatz” is declared a place for play.