Bundesnachrichtendienst    (de|en) 

an invisible tower for the German Federal Intelligence Service

with Markus Bühler and Julian Pommer,

Proposal, Prof. Zamp Kelp, Berlin 2007

The BND is currently building a new headquarter in the centre of Berlin, a 200.000sqm fortress. The same volume piled up would fill a 500m Tower. This tower is what we fear and propose. The unbuildable proposal is raising to question the buildable and yet almost realized one slamming dystopia over the upcoming reality.


The Agency
The risk of terrorist attacks has widely escalated during the last decades. Us the citizens are feeling increasingly insecure. What we need is a reliably partner when it comes to security. The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is such a partner. It is our foreign intelligence service and it defends us against threads from the outside. Times are changing and the menace is not only coming from outside anymore. As evil starts to trickle in the BND should start to work inland as well.

Since every single one of us is a potential danger, every body else has to be sheltered from this danger. Whenever we keep secrets, it is the agency’s purpose to lift them. Every secret could be a dangerous one.

From above you can see the most. Therefore the service gets a tower. From up there one can oversee and control most of the city including the sky above it. The tower becomes our big brother. Whoever wants to harm the city and its inhabitants has to mess with him. That could become difficult because it is hard to spot the tower. It drapes itself in a façade that observes and clones the sky around. The only noticeable shift is a dubious shadow on the streets and pixelated clouds. From time to time.
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The Reichstag shows how citizens can participate in the work of democratic institutions. They let us up to the roof. Safety is common, as well. That's why the core of the tower is reserved for visitors two elevators bring them up to the visitors level and let them take care of their city themselves. Citizens can use telescopes to watch down to their friends and neighbours and to report in case something peculiar occurs. The visitor’s core also acts as the building’s spine. It holds the building as much as the Agency is hold up by the citizens who are its field of work, its employer and its raison d’être. What happens in case of emergency? The tower does not only watch out. Big brother also knows to defend his little siblings.

A helicopter squadron of the airforce based on the top floor and prepared to fight back every thread. In the unlikely case of fire, there are different escape routes for employees and visitors, making sure that nobody enters high security areas without permission.

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