Dhe war in Ukraine not only takes the lives of many people every day, it also destroys projects that are several thousand kilometers away from Kyiv and which, at first glance, have nothing to do with Vladimir Putin’s imperialism. An example of this is the refurbishment of the Stuttgart State Opera, which it claims is the largest three-section theater in the world. The opera house, built in 1912 according to plans by Max Littmann, has not undergone any fundamental renovation work for 35 years. The technology is ready for a museum, fire protection and occupational safety conditions can hardly be observed. Just a year ago it seemed as if there could be a broad political consensus for redevelopment. In autumn 2018, the Board of Directors approved the renovation and expansion of the building; the Stuttgart municipal council then passed a fundamental resolution in June 2021.
Now war, inflation and the gas crisis are causing everything to slide. Those involved can put their jubilant messages (“crucial change”, “breakthrough”, “good day for the theatre”) in the shredder. There has always been a small group of critics in the CDU parliamentary group who are closer to their constituency in the Allgäu than to the wishes of Stuttgart’s bohemian culture. The Greens, with their Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann, an opera goer and connoisseur, have so far been financially generous. But now a cabinet proposal that was supposed to decide on the establishment of a project company for the redevelopment has been postponed.
Potential billions in costs
The CDU parliamentary group leader, Manuel Hagel, got involved in the discussion and discovered a topic for personal profiling. The Green parliamentary group has already approved the cabinet proposal – if the project should actually fail because of the CDU, the Greens would not be to blame. This is part of a political “blame game” that began the moment the renovation began to falter.
Hagel has now announced that he will not support the cabinet bill prepared by Green Finance Minister Danyal Bayaz. “In any case, we will find a good solution. But in times of war, crisis and inflation, there must be no automatism that obliges us to renovate the opera only with the gold rim solution for possibly almost two billion euros in the end. We are therefore asking for an update of the cost calculations and an architectural competition that contains different variants: the renovation and expansion now being discussed or a cheaper repair variant.” The CDU will support the establishment of a project company if it implements the specifications. Only after the architectural competition and an updated cost estimate can there be a final “principle decision” on how to proceed.
Ministry of Finance: 2 billion “picked number”
The reason for this protest is the dramatic increase in construction costs: in 2018, 260 million euros were calculated for the renovation of the Littmann building, 200 million for the new construction of the scenery building and a further 90 million euros for the remaining renovation work, then a risk buffer of 30 percent and construction cost increases of 2.7 percent annually. In the end, the costs in 2019 were estimated at 958 million euros. This did not include the construction of an interim venue for at least 100 million euros near the Wagenhallen. In view of an inflation rate of seven percent and a further increase in construction costs, optimists now estimate the construction costs at 1.5 billion euros, pessimists at two billion.
Can an opera renovation for such sums be politically justified in the crisis? A spokesman for the Ministry of Finance says that at the moment there is no serious cost calculation, that the two billion euros are a “real number” and that the cabinet proposal by no means provides – as claimed by the CDU – that the founding of the project company will necessarily cost two billion euros must be.
Delay almost inevitable
According to an opinion poll conducted by the regional newspapers, citizens would like savings on construction projects and in the cultural budget in times of crisis. In the current state budget for 2023/24 there is an “investment corridor”: 125 million euros per year for new investments. If the renovation actually costs two billion euros, then the state would have to pay 100 million euros for the opera house renovation over ten years. The city as well. The scope is narrow.
If Hagel and the CDU prevail and there is actually an architectural competition with several variants, the start of construction is likely to be delayed again by one to one and a half years. A new opera building on the track apron of the terminal station, which could be cleared by 2028, would be back in the discussion. Years ago it was still said that a new building was more expensive than renovation and that there was no suitable plot of land. Both arguments could soon be obsolete.
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