Italian architect dismisses Berlin claims

Jul 1, 2009, 15:08 GMT

Berlin - An Italian architect selected to design a replica of a 18th-Century palace in the heart of Berlin has dismissed claims he was not eligible for the multimillion dollar project.

A lawyer for Francesco Stella said there was no truth to allegations the architect had failed to meet the requirements set by the selection committee.

Stella's design for the reconstruction of the building demolished by communist authorities in 1950 was chosen by an international jury from a short-list of 30 entries in November 2008.

But the Berlin magazine zitty reported that Stella should have been excluded because his office failed to meet the minimum standards set out in the competition.

The report claimed the architect's office did not have a required average annual turnover of 300,000 euros (420,000 dollars) between 2004-2006, as stated by Stella.

It also said the Italian had failed to meet the requirement of employing three full-time architects during this period.

Neither the German Construction Ministry nor the Federal Office for Architecture and Planning had vetted the details provided by Stella, the report added.

Stella's lawyer, Michael Pietzcker, said the architect had given truthful details in his submission to the jury.

The construction of the winning design on the site of the old East German parliament building will cost an estimated 552 million euros.

Behind that baroque facade, the interior will be modern and will be used as an arts centre, as well as a public library and university teaching space.

The building will not be called the royal palace, but the Humboldt Forum. The original palace, begun in 1700, was the town home of the kings of Prussia who later became the kaisers of Germany.

Like Berlin's other major landmarks, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the Island of Museums, the exterior is expected to give more pre-war flavor to a city where modern architecture predominates.

The tenants are to be the Prussia Foundation, which owns the royal art collections, the Berlin state library and Humboldt University.