This is what the central library in today’s Galeries Lafayette department store could look like in the future Photo: ZLB/BZ assembly
From Hildburg Bruns
Farewell, Galeries Lafayette?! Farewell to the only German branch of the legendary Paris department store chain? There are still question marks over the possible withdrawal of the luxury department store from Friedrichstrasse.
He was threatened several times, bitterly feared by residents, customers and politicians. The fizzled dream of an elegant shopping street that wanted to compete with the Kudamm. 1990s dream.
A visit to the spectacular building with the glass funnel in the middle is (was) part of the standard program for foreign relatives and tourists. It would be a horror if this building stopped attracting visitors.
As awkwardly as Berlin’s culture senator engineered his desire to use the glass palace by moving in the central library – the idea is always fascinating.
Libraries today are very lively meeting places. Quite apart from the fact that it is always better to use a house that has already been built than to concrete a green space in Kreuzberg, for example. In the end, of course, everything depends on the money, and that’s why the idea could fail. As building senator Gaebler oracles ambiguously: “I’m curious what rent the private builder calls.”
It could end with a hasty shot from the politically inexperienced Senator for Culture. Because the idea was already thrown into the running by third parties during the CDU/SPD coalition talks – and ended up quietly and secretly in the drawer even then. A pity.