The Great Pyramid project started as the brainchild of German writer Ingo Niermann and entrepreneur Jens Thiel. We find it hard to remember when exactly, it was just there some time earlier this millennium. In 2006 Ingo published Umbauland (Remodel Nation) at edition Suhrkamp, a collection of ten short essays envisioning simple but somewhat radical changes which could be able to break the agony that plagued Germany in the early 2000s. In Umbauland an early draft of the Great Pyramid idea was argued as a catalyst that would be able to ease the enduring economic crisis of the new east German Länder.

When we learned about the new The Future of Labour fund set up by the Federal Cultural Foundation of Germany in spring 2006, we reckoned our proposal might perfectly fit and applied for a grant. In this application we made it clear we would be actually attempting to make the Great Pyramid a reality. In late 2006 we received 90 k Euro funding from the Foundation in order to discuss the Great Pyramid as a means for creating new employment opportunities and formally established a supporting association, the Friends of the Great Pyramid. Heiko Holzberger brought in engineering competences, Maik Bluhm designed a first website and writer Christian Kracht temporarily supported the project with his inescapable charme.

In early 2007 we began to detail and improve the concept initially sketched in Umbauland. Since we were to introduce the project we received the grant for at a specific site, we turned to the city of Dessau-Rosslau. Dessau-Rosslau had lost a quarter of its population since the German reunification but still unemployment was hovering at a steady 20% for years. On the other hand, the region of Anhalt-Dessau boasted a uniquely rich cultural heritage unsurpassed by any other region in the world. In only 20 kilometers distance, visitors would find three UNESCO World Cultural Heritages: the Dessau Bauhaus, the Dessau-Woerlitz Garden Realm and the Wittenberg Luther sites where Christian reformation originated. If there were any visitors though. The whole state of Saxony-Anhalt attracts no more than 200,000 international tourists a year and had been called a „land without a face“ by the Financial Times Germany.

Next to the tiny little town of Streetz, situated on the northern edge of Dessau-Rosslau, we identified the largest undeveloped and connected plot of land within the city limits. After Streetz´s mayor had welcomed our proposal warmly and much encouraged us to go ahead, we introduced the Great Pyramid idea to the villagers in May 2007. Reactions were mixed. They liked the idea – but not necessarily in their backyards.

After we staged a small-ish open air festival headlined by Northern Lite in early September 2007 to playfully advertise the plan to the locals, a first small storm went through international media. At about the same time we issued an urban planning ideas competition for the Streetz plot in order to better illustrate the concept´s potential. When Ingo asked Pritzker Prize winning architect Rem Koolhaas to join the jury, he without hesitation agreed. By this time it became obvious that we were at something that not only we but many, many others found straightforward reasonable, practical and still much fascinating. What had been oscillating between a conceptual media art project and a would-be-business became a serious venture demanding long hours of more and more work while it was getting increasingly appreciated by the international public.

The Berlin Great Pyramid Gala on March 10, 2008 was the grand finale of the Great Pyramid as an art project and the prelude to a new stage. Now the project is becoming a business – not because we are desperately trying to make a killing of death and grief but because the Great Pyramid will never be realized if there is no commercial chance behind it.

We have a greatly strengthened team by now and are in the process of raising new funds from more than just interested private and institutional investors. Dessau-Rosslau is sending strong signals that the city is not willing to miss their unique chance to host the Great Pyramid, other cities will soon join the race. The Great Pyramid by any means looks as if it cannot be stopped anymore. It´s worth it.