As the project of a new Bauakademie moves forward, it brings to mind that K.-F. Schinkel is more a friend rather than a tool for a nasty political agenda. We believe new scaffolding can lean on the stones of the Bauakademie. However, the stones laid in 1836 under the Schinkelplatz met the foundations of another building, the Ministry of Foreign affairs for the GDR, which was swiftly demolished after the reunification. As one can observe in Berlin, Potsdam or Dresden, soon, only harmless folklore, memorials and monuments, will be left from that era. 

The new Bauakademie won’t vouch for this “forward to the past” which is meant to erase a defunct alternative. The reconstruction of a phantasy, Berlin Capital of Prussia, as a veil for an ideological clear out, does not find our support. 

For the competition, we have tried to develop a sort of Speculative Reconstruction, rather than what we consider as the final and regressive stage of “Kritische Rekonstruktion”. Therefore, to avoid substituting a story by another, the conceptual and physical foundations of our proposal reveal partly past geometries and relics, both 1836 Schinkel and 1967 GDR’s ministry. We imagine the new Bauakademie as an autonomous machine, meant to incorporate these layered stories from the past and also, maybe more importantly, to carry forward new ones.