The Palace of the Republic after the removal of asbestos

In the spring of 2003 the work of removing the asbestos from the Palace of the Republic was finished. In order to get at the asbestos, the building’s complete contents as well as the wall cladding, the interior partitions and the floors had to be taken away.

The following pictures show you quite clearly that the building no longer reminds one of the former “People’s Palace” in the least. To remove the asbestos, the gold colored façade was made air tight with a layer of building foam, so that during the work, a slight vacuum could be created in the interior of the building with pumps. Thus one could prevent any uncontrolled asbestos fibers from getting free into the outside air. Instead, all the interior air was passed through very fine filters.

From the outside, the facades conceal, with their reflective surface, the actual status of the building’s structure.

Briefly regarding the contamination:

About 750 tons of pure asbestos mixed with 4,000 tons of binder material were sprayed onto around 175,000 square meters of the surface of the steel structural framework.

This huge amount of asbestos, which is unique in all of Europe (one could call it the most contaminated building of all) had to be completely removed so that no one would be exposed to possible health dangers if the edifice were to be used for a new purpose or later demolished.

A similar situation arose in Hamburg in 1994 with the Millerntor high rise. Since it could no longer be rented out because of asbestos, one million marks had to be spent to remove the asbestos. Not until the Building Inspector’s office, the health authorities and the trade unions had confirmed that the asbestos was gone, could the building be demolished!

Link to the palace pictures:   

Palastinneres