page_title: Humboldt Box
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Humboldt Box / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: View of Berlin from Humboldt-Box (Schlossplatz). Construction site of the Berlin City Palace. Deutsch: Aussicht über Berlin von den Terrassen der Humboldt-Box (Schloßplatz). Baustelle des Berliner Stadtschlosses.
context_page_description: The Humboldt Box was a futuristic museum structure on the Schloßplatz in the center of Berlin, Germany. It was built as a temporary exhibition space and viewing platform for the Humboldt Forum construction project and to inform the public about its future use.
context_section_description: The Humboldt Box was built as an information centre about plans for a future palace, a viewing platform for its construction site, and a temporary exhibition space for the future tenants. The idea came from a similar structure at Potsdamer Platz, the "Visitor Box on Stilts", which stood at the site of a large construction project there from 1995 to 2001. Hoping to repeat the success of the bright red "box on stilts", which served as an information centre and attracted some nine million visitors, the Friends of the Berlin City Palace and their supporters proposed the Humboldt Box to "win the hearts" of Berliners to the costly and ambitious plan to rebuild the Stadtschloss (Berlin City Palace). Used by Hohenzollern Prussian kings and German Emperors, the imperial palace suffered extensive damage in World War II and was razed in 1950 by the East German government.
  The project to rebuild stalled in 2008 amid political and financial disputes. The new City Palace has since been proposed as an extension of the Berlin State Museums and Humboldt University, with modern interiors, but facades and domes resembling the former imperial palace. Renamed Humboldt Forum, the new plan has gained political support and funding, however the Humboldt Box itself was in private ownership, as neither the federal government nor the Berlin Senate wanted to finance it. The company Megaposter was awarded the contract for construction of the Humboldt Box in September 2009, with the financing secured through future advertising revenue. To do this, the fences around the construction site of the new Berlin City Palace would be hired as advertising space, to some controversy.
  The City Palace plans have since been formally approved by the Berlin Senate. The new palace, called "the project of a century", once estimated at 550 million euros, is now expected to cost nearly 600 million euros.
caption: View from the Humboldt Box to the construction site of the replica of Berlin Palace, April 2013
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