Constructing 'Brasilia am Rhein': National Architecture and Urban Identity in Bonn in the 1960s.

A small city of students and pensioners prior to 1949, Bonn became perhaps the most peculiar European capital city of the twentieth century. Central to Bonn's transformation into the provisional capital of West Germany was a conflict between the federal government's attempts to meet an insatiable need for space and the municipal government's efforts to retain control over its urban space and conserve its traditional identity. This conflict took a decisive turn in the 1960s with the planning and construction of a 30-story office tower designed by Egon Eiermann and completed in 1969 for members of the Bundestag. The tower radically altered Bonn's skyline and became a central part of a much larger debate in Bonn about the function and role of a capital city, national symbolism and the responsibilities that a national government held for its municipal host in the context of a modern federal democracy. For residents of Bonn, the glass-and-steel monolith represented a betrayal by the federal government and the disfigurement of the mythical Rhine landscape. However, as much as the building was vilified, it was also the result of the kinds of vigorous debate and compromise that are hallmarks of democratic societies, and although the planning process was imperfect, it was a first halting step in Bonn's coming to terms with its new position as national capital while forcing the federal government to respect and fulfil its desires and needs as a small but vital city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]