LAWMAKERS BACK BERLIN’S SCHLOSS BUT CAP FUNDING

In a vote yesterday, German lawmakers backed the rebuilding of Berlin’s Schloss, setting a limit of €552 million ($810 million) in reconstruction costs for the imperial palace blown to pieces by the East German authorities in 1950, reports Bloomberg‘s Catherine Hickey. To make space for reconstruction of the palace inhabited by Prussian rulers and by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany until his abdication in 1918, authorities are dismantling the Communist-era bronze-glass, steel, and concrete Palast der Republik. Reconstruction of the Schloss is slated to start in 2010. The plan is to re-create the original facade and design an interior to house some of Berlin’s antiquities and art, parts of the Humboldt University, and the city library.