Authorities reject art project bid to rebuild Berlin Wall

The plan had been to erect 900 concrete wall slabs, each 3.60 metres (about 12 feet) tall at a city block on Unter den Linden boulevard, for the 6.6 million euro ($7.7 million) event.

The walled-in "city within a city" was meant to have its own visa checks, and visitors to the parallel world would have had to apply online for entrance permits.

But the project sparked controversy, with critics labelling it a stunt hurtful to people who lived in communist East Germany.

Sabine Weissler, the councillor in charge of the Berlin district concerned, said there had not been sufficient time to obtain views from residents who could be affected by the project.

"It has not been possible for the organisation to guarantee that the event would be carried out safely," she added. Building applications for such a major undertaking should be filed a year before construction is due to begin, she noted.

The organisers had only put in their application at the beginning of August for a project to be launched on October 12 before ending with a ritualistic tearing down of the wall on November 9, the day of the historic event in 1989.