The reconstructed Berliner Schloss, referred to a couple of days ago in the post headed Athens 1931, is run by an organisation called the Humboldt Forum. Hence the Humboldt Box, that houses the exhibition about the project. It will have our Neil MacGregor as a Gründungsintendantenor or founding director.
Also you may be interested to know that if the rebuilding is on budget, it will cost 590 million euros most of which is coming from the German government, meaning the taxpayer.
Now for some building projects closer to home, that is my home. The view from my garden and study has been augmented by two big red cranes. They are being used in the construction of the Simon Sainsbury Theatre and some smaller stages and rehearsal rooms for LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art). This will open in September 2016.
Not far away, on the site of the Commonwealth Institute in Kensington High Street, the new premises for the Design Museum are coming along well and should also open in September 2016. This has been a controversial project as it has had to be funded by building a block of flats in front of the new museum. At least I think they are flats, they could be offices, but whatever they are they obscure the view of the museum from the High Street: a pity, but even though Terence Conran has given £17.5 million, the whole project will cost £80 million – actually not too bad these days, although the opera house at Wexford, built less than ten years ago, was a bargain 32 million euros.
Greek banks have re-opened but the crisis is not over. To talk about it knowledgeably it is essential to use the term “primary surplus” and here is what this means:
Countries’ primary surplus (deficit) refers to the component of the fiscal surplus (deficit) that is comprised of current government spending less current income from taxes, and excludes interest paid on government debt.
My Greek correspondent tells me that the European lenders will be satisfied when Greece has a primary surplus, however small. Once this is achieved they may not be able to write down the massive amount owed to them, because of eurozone lending rules, but they will both reduce the rate of interest paid on these debts and extend the period over which they must be re-paid. Then inflation will come to the rescue. Good old inflation that impoverishes fixed income pensioners and enriches highly leveraged property developers.
Francis, thank you for your contribution posted as a comment under the post headed Friday. Under The Radar, a novel by James Hamilton-Paterson set in 1961, evokes your East Anglian childhood in the Cold War. You might enjoy it.
A postscript to your NY correspondent’s observations about ‘Summer Fridays’. The NY Times had an article on this very subject last weekend confirming that this ‘elegant’ (in their words) tradition continues to this day in media, publishing, law and finance up and down the island of Manhattan. I, too, can report the tradition is alive and well. I had to wait until late Friday afternoon to speak with a partner of a ‘white shoe’ legal firm here in New York – presumably to allow him time to chopper out to the Hamptons?