New Royal Opera House in Berlin

The Emperor sent a telegram to his Finance Minister Georg von Rheinbaben, suggesting a "speedy new building" and ending with the words: "I can no longer sleep peacefully at night".

Genzmer was proposed by the General Director of the Royal Theatre Georg Graf von Hülsen-Haeseler and was also known and liked by the Emperor through his work in Wiesbaden.

Genzmer himself was also criticized, for example by the publicist Maximilian Harden, who wrote in the Zukunft in 1906: "Besides Messel, we have Gabriel Seidl in Munich, Fischer in Stuttgart, Wallot in Dresden, Behrens in Düsseldorf, Licht in Leipzig, and perhaps many others.

"In 1906, Genzmer presented his first plans, which the Emperor rejected, as he did not want to see "the simple but elegant architecture from Frederick the Great's time, which dominates the area around the current opera house, damaged by a colossal building".

The plans presented by Felix Genzmer in 1909 called for the opera house to be built south of the east–west axis on Königsplatz, with a second building on the north side.

This design was rejected by the Prussian Ministry of Public Works because: "The idea of erecting a building of the importance and size of the opera house to the side of the center line of Königsplatz must be described as misguided and unacceptable from a general artistic point of view."

From the finance minister's point of view, it was almost impossible to explain this distribution of costs to the Prussian House of Representatives and to enforce it.

Graf von Hülsen-Haeseler, at whose suggestion Genzmer had already been chosen, apparently wanted to appoint another architect for the project first, and on January 11, 1910, he sent a non-binding request to the Berlin city planning commissioner Ludwig Hoffmann, who declined.

The Emperor finally agreed to the competition, but rejected a review committee (jury) and made it clear that he would not give the architects a free hand under any circumstances.

As a result, the Berliner Tageblatt of September 2, 1910 reported: "If no better men were known at the top or did not dare to propose them to the emperor, then a general competition had to be held.

Further ideas were provided by the Vienna State Opera of Eduard van der Nüll and August Siccard von Siccardsburg.

The Emperor also agreed to a closer competition between Ernst von Ihne, Heinrich Seeling, and (in contrast to the ministries' proposal) Max Littmann.

In preparation for this follow-up competition, the government architect Hans Grube drew up a preliminary design at the Ministry of Public Works as a basis for further planning.

On March 6, the confidential building council Richard Saran from the Ministry of Public Works presented the current status of the discussions in a speech to the House of Representatives: "After careful joint deliberation, we were unable to avoid the conclusion that the designs by Seeling and Littmann did not meet the justified demands of the administration, so that they had to be eliminated for further processing despite their other advantages, the beauty of the architecture and attractive details.

In particular, the ministries' handling of the limited competition and the fact that the winning design was submitted by an unknown civil servant were highly criticized.

The resolution called for an open competition in which participants would be allowed to deviate from the program sketch, with the Prussian Academy of Architecture making the final assessment.

Like the first selection, this one also consisted mainly of architects who already had experience in the construction of theaters or similar buildings and had made a positive impression on the emperor.

The designs by Otto March, Richard Seel, Martin Dülfer, Carl Moritz, and the contribution by the architectural office of Peter Jürgensen and Jürgen Bachmann (Berlin) were particularly highlighted.

On February 13, 1913, the Prussian House of Representatives passed a resolution that the government should find and commission an independent architect who would incorporate the best proposals of all previous concepts into one design.

However, this decision was not unanimous; Karl Liebknecht, for example, strongly criticized it: "It is shameful the fact that, the Chamber of Deputies, after having dared to contradict a little last year, incited by the artists and their opposition, has now completely kowtowed to the Royal State Government, to the building authorities.

He was put off by working with the General Directorate of the Royal Theatres, and at this time Hoffmann's main interest lay in the construction of social and welfare buildings.

He wrote about this in his memoirs: "After my experience in building museums, it seemed to me that working successfully with the general directorate of the theaters as a client was quite doubtful, and I was so overburdened with large tasks that I did not long for a new one at the time.

The three pencil drawings, dated May 11, 1913, showed alternative fronts for the Opera House, some flanked by other, previously unplanned buildings, to illustrate the further development of the square.

The public only found out about Hoffmann's involvement in the construction at the end of May, but the response in the press to this selection was very positive and at the same time associated with high expectations.

After a meeting with the Minister of Finance, some savings were agreed, particularly in the design of the interior and the depot building, which was to be connected to the opera house.

The final plans, views, sections, and perspectives were also published in the central journal of the building administration, together with Ludwig Hoffmann's explanations of the design.

Hoffmann placed the cash desks, which were to be built to the side of a central vestibule, at the two outermost ends and equipped each of these areas with its projection (Risalit), which was to accommodate further ancillary rooms.

In the overall picture, however, it was the extension in length that posed the greater problem, especially since, for reasons of cost, the building was not to occupy the entire width of the Königsplatz, which made the disproportion even more obvious.

For this reason, Hoffmann planned functional buildings immediately adjacent to both sides and an emphasis on the outer edges, while he preferred not to emphasize the central part.

The composer Richard Strauss, who had been consulted, was enthusiastic about the idea, as it would allow the audience to see the singers in their entirety over the heads of those seated in front of them.