“Art Has a Bad (W)rap”: A Conversation with Michael Cullen about the “Wrapped Reichstag”

“The history of monuments teaches us much more about people and societies that commissioned them than the people and events for whom they were commissioned.” This is how Michael S. Cullen explained the meaning of commemorative architecture in an interview conducted by telephone, due to Corona restrictions, on 17 September 2020 (see also his introduction to Das Holocaust-Mahnmal, 18). Monuments are designed to commemorate important figures and events, but they also materialize the discussions and debates involved in their construction. Cullen should know. His work has made him the voice, perhaps even the conscience, of what is perhaps the most dialogic monument in Berlin: the Reichstag.