Germany's 'Kohlosseum'.(criticism of new government office building in Berlin)(Brief Article)

The tour guide jokes with passengers as the boat cruises up the Spree in Berlin. "This building is an exact copy of the train station in Baku," he quips, pointing toward a towering block of gray concrete vaguely suggesting a socialist monument. The tourists gape in awe at one of Berlin's biggest construction projects, a sprawling mass that stretches the length of 3i football fields between the left bank of the river and the fresh spring green of Berlin's Tiergarten park. Eight stories high, it's a melange of stark walls, irregular columns, and metallic green trim. Because of the giant, oval window in the facade, says the guide, "Berliners call it the 'washing machine'."

That washing machine happens to be the future office of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder. This week he and his staff move into the just-completed German Chancellery, part of the gleaming new government complex rising in the center of Berlin. But among all the new ministries, embassies and public works, the Chancellery is the one building tour guides, commentators and ordinary citizens alike love to hate. With its massive dimensions (it's eight times larger than the White House, and 10 Downing Street could fit into the foyer), the postmodern, deconstructed edifice offends many Germans' sense of proportion. And its new resident isn't impressed either. "Too showy. A size smaller would have done just as well," pooh-poohed Schroder after touring the construction site last month, grumbling that it was "tailored to fit another politician's frame."

Indeed it was. Schroder's predecessor, Helmut Kohl, approved plans for the 235 million euro building in 1995, after Parliament decided to abandon its provincial postwar capital in Bonn and move the government back to Berlin. Since then the former chancellor has been discredited by revelations that he ran a sophisticated political machine fueled by millions in illegal contributions. Many see the building as a monument to the fallen leader's lust for power and contempt for Parliament. In fact, the new Chancellery's hefty girth outsizes even the classical Reichstag across the square. The hapless architects, Berliners Axel Schultes and Charlotte Frank, say they had to fight to keep Kohl from pushing through an even more massive design.

Schroder's own ...