Discover a piece of Berlin’s history as four panels of the original Berlin Wall make their home at Bedok Reservoir Park.
    Entitled The Kings of Freedom, the wall panels are on long-term loan to Singapore from Mr and Mrs Robert A Hefner. Named after the graffiti murals depicting the faces of a brightly coloured ‘happy’ king and the other, a greytoned ‘blind’ king, the project celebrates friendship, unity, respect, hope and love.
    German artist Dennis Kaun’s artistic intention of the graffiti murals is to convey the sense of the moment in history where two powerful ideologues clashed in values and beliefs. The Berlin Wall was built in 1961 to stop East Berliners from fleeing their communist state to West Berlin.
    The launch ceremony of the wall was attended by 300 guests, including Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Lim Hwee Hwa. The project was started in 2008 and it involved getting public opinion on the use of what is to become eventually the housing facility of the walls at Bedok Reservoir Park. Active participation from the public resulted in various creative ideas that would enliven Bedok Reservoir Park and incite visitors to reflect on the relevance of the experiences that the Berlin Wall represents. As Mr Yeo put it, the wall should not be a dry relic from the past, but an icon which draws people to it, provoking thought and discussion. The eventual concept was one that proposed a café with an open space at the site.
    Far East Organization and Frasers Centrepoint Limited were the principal donors of S$1 million to The Kings of Freedom Project. They are joint developers of a residential project, The Waterfront Collection, located within the vicinity of the Berlin Wall at the reservoir. LM