Dezeen Magazine

Nazi rally grounds in Nuremberg to be rebuilt

News: a complex of Nazi rally grounds in Nuremberg designed by Hitler's favourite architect will undergo repairs costing €70 million (£60 million) to prevent the crumbling structures endangering tourists.

Around 200,000 visitors flock to the site in Nuremberg, southern Germany, each year but the monuments, designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer to last as long as Roman structures, have been gradually deteriorating since the end of the Second World War and are in danger of collapsing.

Nuremberg mayor Ulrich Maly told German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that the only other available choices are to fence off the grounds, which would "certainly not be an appealing story for the city", or to renovate the site and prevent future accidents.

Some parts have previously been demolished, but Maly says this is no longer an option as the site is now listed as a historically significant memorial.

"It's not about prettying up the city" he said. "We won't be searching for true to original sandstone."

The six-square-mile site featured as a backdrop for Nazi propaganda movie Triumph of the Will and includes 24 towers and a "Zeppelin Tribune". It was used to host six Nazi party rallies between 1933 and 1938.

The first section of repairs are set to include a structural examination of the Zeppelin Tribune, including the mosaic-lined "Golden Hall" that the Fuehrer used for private audiences. It is understood that graffiti left on the walls by Allied soldiers after the war will be left intact.

Speer designed the buildings of the Reich to outlast the regime and used materials like granite and marble instead of steel and concrete in the hope that they would prove as enduring as classical monuments. In his "Theory of Ruin Value", Speer wrote: "By using special materials and by applying certain principles of statics, we should be able to build structures which even in a state of decay, after hundreds or (such were our reckonings) thousands of years would more or less resemble Roman models."

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Photograph is courtesy of Adam Jones.