Hauptstadt Schach10 (Capital Chess)
Installation and Exhibition, Reichsbankgebäude, Berlin

A GAME OF CHESS – BERLIN’S PLANNING PROCESS

Berlin’s city planning process has inspired a CHESS EVENT that allows anyone to experience the planning process. The game is played on a map of Berlin with the game figures representing the major players in the development of the city.

Event: Designed by John Powers, at the invitation of the Senate of Berlin, architects, city planners, investors, politicians, cultural leaders and others who represented major forces in Berlin’s capital city development project opened the “Capital-City-Happening” tournament by playing Capital Chess in the former Reichsbankgebäude (Central Bank of Germany) building of Berlin.

The dark and light squares are drawn on a map of central Berlin (1:10,000) ensuring that play will occur within the city environment.

Moves must be made within 7 seconds to give the players a feeling of the incredible speed in which the city is transforming itself.

The CHESS pieces have been re-created to represent the major forces influencing Berlin’s development:

-National and International Interests
-Economics, Financial Pressures and Capital
-Communication and Technological Services
-Industry and Manufacture
-Labor
-Urban Development and Planning Requirements and Issues

The chess pieces create arrangements on the chess board which correspond to current city development plans. For example, the king is represented by the German flag, it begins on Spreebogen, site for the new German Capital. The rook is represented by Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks and starts on Potsdamer Platz, where Daimler-Benz has begun Berlin’s largest building project. The pawns are reconstructed to represent labor and construction aspects of the process. The pieces not only represent the major forces in the planning process but initiate their play on the board at important geographical sites.

THE PUBLIC IS INVITED TO JOIN THE PLANNING PROCESS AND PLAY