The Fragment and the Turtle: Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s Nikolaikirche, like the Pantheons in Rome and Paris, is a combination of classical architectural fragments: the temple front, the drum, the dome and the Diocletian window. “The Fragment and The Turtle” reconfigures Schinkel’s fragments in order to produce a new space on the Nikolaikirche’s original footprint. The Second World War left the original church in ruins, but the city quickly removed the signs of destruction and rebuilt a perfect replica of the church which stood before, concealing the true history of Potsdam. “The Fragment and The Turtle” is a memorial that seeks to recombine and reinterpret relationships between dome, drum and temple front while signifying historical aggression. It draws its primary architectural fragments into its shell, like a turtle safeguarding itself from danger, and in doing so produces new spatial and formal relationships between the architectural fragments themselves.
