Castle Gnome is a virtual art project by Stefan Roloff. It was developed in a team effort with the web marketer Diego Gomez, the photographer Christian Jungeblodt and the 3D animator Frank Kunkel with music by Martin Rev and Johannes Roloff. Roloff’s inspiration arose from the heated debate about the reconstruction of the square. Defenders of the city castle's re-construction and their adversaries, the defenders of the former Communist Palace of the Republic called each other "philistine." His project gained additional momentum when the competition for a monument to freedom and unity failed, despite 532 proposals.
As a result, in 2009, Stefan Roloff constructed a characteristically-German monument in the form of a 50 meter-high garden gnome in the virtual reality of Google Earth and other digital spaces.
| “ | I understand your question this way that there are people in Germany who wish that I mobilize Berlin’s construction workers to erect a 50 Meter high garden gnome. I am not informed about any such intent. Our capital’s construction crews are mostly busy with housing construction, their manpower is fully deployed for that. Nobody intends to construct a garden gnome on Berlin’s Republic Square (Platz der Republik) - now called Castle Square (Schlossplatz). | ” |
The city castle, a baroque building, was finished by Andreas Schlüter in 1699. In World War II, it was severely damaged. In 1950, Walter Ulbricht had it torn down as a symbol of Prussian absolutism. From 1973 to 1976, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) constructed the Palace of the Republic on the same land. After extensive asbestos decontamination, the German government completed demolition in 2008. In 2012 the "re- construction" of the new city palace will commence, with a budget estimated at 500 million Euros.
Nobody has the intention to build a wall. Former GDR Chairman Ulbricht told the international press on June 15, 1961, even though nobody had asked him. Two months later, the wall was built. The planned monument of freedom and unity is supposed to honor the peaceful revolution and remember attempts at unity in German history. After producing 532 proposals the competition was considered a failure.