Nothing at the Humboldt Forum met with such unanimous rejection as the saying that runs in golden letters around the palace dome, a demand for submission compiled by Friedrich Wilhelm IV from several Bible verses, which culminates in the words: “That in the name of Jesus should bow down of all those knees that are in heaven and on earth and under the earth. ” It is not easy to achieve under this motto what the new coalition agreement, like the old one, demands: The forum should become a “cosmopolitan, democratic place of debate”.
The Humboldt Forum has now also recognized this. It is a matter of developing ideas “how we can deal with something that still does not satisfy and does not satisfy”, said General Director Hartmut Dorgerloh at an event on Thursday evening in Berlin. One of those ideas is one Ticker with quotes from the Basic Law and the Declaration of Human Rights, behind which the Bible words will disappear at night. A network with LEDs should be mounted in front of the golden letters. The idea for this comes from the designer Sven Lochmann and the lawyer Konrad Miller, who founded the “Initiative Leuchtturm” for this purpose. It is not yet clear when the neon sign will be installed and for how long. A spokesman for the Humboldt Forum spoke of an “intervention”; the writing would probably not be seen permanently.
It is nevertheless remarkable that this project is to be implemented. After all, private donors have paid millions for the new construction of the historic facade (or a version of it), which is now counteracted by the ticker. Wilhelm von Boddien, who collected over 100 million donations with his Friends of the Berlin Palace, reacted indignantly to the LED idea. He feared a “cultural rupture such as we have never had in our history – the rule of secularization over our 2,000-year-old roots in Christianity,” he said. It was countered that the Humboldt Forum was not a religious but a secular building.