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(clockwise from top left):
Huberta von Voss-Wittig plays
near the reflecting pool with the
family’s rescue puppy, Mikosch,
adopted through K-9 Lifesavers
Dog Rescue.
A view of the residence, designed
by architect O.M. Ungers and
completed in 1994, from the
gardens below.
The reception hall boasts a
marble fireplace and cherry
wood and leather furniture. Color
woodcuts on canvas from the
”Men Without Women - Parsifal”
series by Markus Lüpertz encircle
the room.
The massive table in the formal
dining room was designed to
seat large groups. Paintings on
the wall are by Bernard Schultze
(1915-2005).
THIS PAGE
(clockwise from top left):
A small statue of a clown by
Hans Scheib graces a table in
the Ladies’ Sitting Room, one of
the smaller meeting rooms off
the Reception Hall. Amb. Wittig
says the room is his favorite in
the house because he can look
out onto the gardens through the
windows.
Bitburger and Köstritzer beer are
on tap in the Berlin Bar.
A neon sign welcomes visitors
as they head downstairs to the
Berlin Bar.
WA S H I N G T O N L I F E
The Wittigs also hold court over smaller gatherings
of intellectuals and authors they’ve dubbed the “Berliner
Salon” in the residence’s downstairs Berlin Bar, a thinkingman’s Ratskeller, where Bitburger beer is on tap.
They relish hosting luminaries and regular folk alike,
and though they admit their more than 19,000-squarefoot monolith of a house, designed by renowned German
architect O.M. Ungers (1926-2007) and completed in 1994,
is far from the coziest place they’ve ever lived, they say it
affords them the opportunity to entertain on a grand scale
and to rarely have to trim the guest list.
“In this building anything is possible,” Mrs. Wittig says.
“I like the transparency of it. I also like the light play and
what it symbolizes … that Germany should be represented
in America in a modern building because it shows that we
are really a modern country.”
Embassy literature describes the building as a synthesis
of traditional and modern styles, but to the untrained eye
the residence is both undeniably modern and a showcase for
everything square – entrance doors, windows, the marble
fireplace, the paintings by contemporary artist Markus
Lüpertz, the Unger-designed furniture, even the pattern on
the floors.
The square orderliness of it all does not allow for
personalization – the most the Wittigs were permitted to do
was swap some of the black furniture for “warmer” cherry
pieces already in the collection.
“[Ungers] designed the furniture, so he conceived this
as sort of an integrated whole so to speak,” Amb. Wittig
observes, noting that they can’t add new furniture. “What
we did, conceptually, is open it up and fill it with new
life.”
Some of that new life includes their rescue puppy,
Mikosch – “the first American born member of the family”
– and the Wittig’s four children, the youngest of whom is 7year-old Felice, who likes to walk across the gardens to the
ambassador’s office for what he calls “surprise inspections,”
and to give her father a kiss on the cheek. Her reward is a
handful of gummy bears.
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