The China Mail - 30 years on, Berlin light show recreates Christo's 'Wrapped Reichstag'

Every night for the next two weeks, 24 projectors will recreate the mega-event that enthralled the city and the world in 1995, about six years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The late, France-based artistic duo specialised in enormous, ephemeral and eye-catching art projects that also saw them temporarily wrap up bridges and even entire islands.

Since Monday evening and until June 20, the western facade of the glass-domed building housing Germany's lower house of parliament is being illuminated after sunset with a giant projection reproducing the installation.

Back in 1995, when Germany was newly reunified, "art brought people together" as they marvelled at a building wrapped in 110,000 square meters of silver fabric, held together with kilometres of rope, said Peter Schwenkow, one of the organisers of this year's event.

The celebration this year aims to "bring together all those who live in this city or visit it to commemorate what happened at the time," he added.

The art installation runs nightly from 9:30 pm until 1:00 am.

The artistic mega event of 1995 was the result of more than 20 years of planning that had sparked heated political debate but ultimately became a huge popular success, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors to Berlin.

The event launched the rebirth of the building, which was burned down in an arson attack in 1933, accelerating the rise of the Nazi regime, and on which a Red Army soldier planted the Soviet flag in 1945 at the end of World War II.

Once unpacked, it was renovated by British star architect Norman Foster, who added its now-famous glass dome. The Bundestag has sat in the building since 1999.

The late Christo and Jeanne-Claude, both born on June 13, 1935, would have turned 90 this year.

E.Choi--ThChM