By 2008 it had been razed, leaving a gaping hole in the city center. When Germany reunited in 1990, the building was found to be ridden with asbestos and closed. For good measure, they later built a convention center–like structure called the Palace of the Republic on the site. After that section of the city became part of East Germany in 1949, the country’s rulers demolished it to signal their break with the past. When Berlin was divided by the Allied powers after World War II, the palace, which had been heavily damaged by bombing, lay in the Soviet zone. The building is a reconstruction of the Stadtschloss, or City Palace, the main residence of the Hohenzollerns from 1443 to 1918, as they evolved from a family of counts and dukes to one of kings and kaisers. Partially clad in a Baroque façade of glowing cherubs, gods, and lions, Berlin’s Humboldt Forum was conceived as a way to make a shattered city whole.
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