Parliament to be turned into a mountain


BERLIN - A team of artists will convert the dilapidated former parliament building of East Germany into a large white mountain next week in a public installation that could be the building's swansong.

Thousands of meters (yards) of white cloth will be draped over a network of scaffolding, covering the building's dark interior of rusting steel beams, leaky ceilings, tinted glass and crumbling concrete walls.

A mountain peak will be added to the outside of the "Palast der Republik" to complete the wintry effect, but that will not be open to the public.

The installation will give the public perhaps one of its last glimpses inside the long-vacant building. It is set to be torn down this year to make way for the reconstruction of a 15th-century castle that once occupied the site.

"We thought that creating just another exhibit in this old, open room would actually be boring," Amelie Deuflhard, one of the project's leaders, told a news conference Thursday.

"Then came the idea to build a mountain, and make a new interpretation," she added.

Built in the 1970s, the building was discovered to be contaminated with asbestos after Germany's reunification and authorities decided to demolish it.