A rebirth in Berlin: Neues Museum
The exhibits have yet to be installed, and there are no cafes, shops or souvenir stalls. But when Berlin's renovated Neues Museum was thrown open to the public for three magical days this month, some 35,000 people came to wander its seductive parade of echoing, empty rooms.
Although the architecture is thrilling, it was probably sheer curiosity that drew the crowds. After all, the museum has been closed to the public since the second world war, when Allied bombs turned it into a charred ruin. An entire wing had gone. Spectacular spaces such as the Egyptian courtyard had been blasted to smithereens. Meanwhile, the museum's collection - including the prized 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti, found in Egypt in 1912 - had long been dispersed for safe-keeping.
Postwar, the Neues Museum found itself in East Germany, which, in its fervour to create a new world, had little interest in the old. Neglected, unloved and lucky not to be bulldozed, it was left as a hulking shell from 1945 to 1986, when some attempts were made to shore up its sorry fabric. It took the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to get the ball rolling again, with British architect David Chipperfield finally winning the 1997 competition to return it to, or even surpass, its former glory.
The Neues Museum, which once housed a commanding collection of Egyptian and prehistoric art in lavishly decorated galleries, is one of five imposing buildings that constitute Berlin's Museum Island. Designed by Friedrich August Stüler, it was completed in 1855 and intended to house the overspill from the Altes Museum situated across the street.
There were those who argued that the museum should be restored to exactly how it had been. Others wanted a modern whitewashed affair with plenty of neutral gallery space, to help the artworks hold their own against the architecture. Some simply objected to the idea of a British architect working on such an important German building. But the judges were won over by Chipperfield, who brought in another British architect, conservation specialist Julian Harrap, to help him create what can only be described as a piece of architectural sorcery: a beguiling mixture of the restored and the new that should silence most, if not all, of his detractors. Although the Neues Museum doesn't properly open for business until October, with its original collection back in place, the grandeur of a building that only the elderly can remember in its original state has clearly been restored...
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
Although the architecture is thrilling, it was probably sheer curiosity that drew the crowds. After all, the museum has been closed to the public since the second world war, when Allied bombs turned it into a charred ruin. An entire wing had gone. Spectacular spaces such as the Egyptian courtyard had been blasted to smithereens. Meanwhile, the museum's collection - including the prized 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti, found in Egypt in 1912 - had long been dispersed for safe-keeping.
Postwar, the Neues Museum found itself in East Germany, which, in its fervour to create a new world, had little interest in the old. Neglected, unloved and lucky not to be bulldozed, it was left as a hulking shell from 1945 to 1986, when some attempts were made to shore up its sorry fabric. It took the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to get the ball rolling again, with British architect David Chipperfield finally winning the 1997 competition to return it to, or even surpass, its former glory.
The Neues Museum, which once housed a commanding collection of Egyptian and prehistoric art in lavishly decorated galleries, is one of five imposing buildings that constitute Berlin's Museum Island. Designed by Friedrich August Stüler, it was completed in 1855 and intended to house the overspill from the Altes Museum situated across the street.
There were those who argued that the museum should be restored to exactly how it had been. Others wanted a modern whitewashed affair with plenty of neutral gallery space, to help the artworks hold their own against the architecture. Some simply objected to the idea of a British architect working on such an important German building. But the judges were won over by Chipperfield, who brought in another British architect, conservation specialist Julian Harrap, to help him create what can only be described as a piece of architectural sorcery: a beguiling mixture of the restored and the new that should silence most, if not all, of his detractors. Although the Neues Museum doesn't properly open for business until October, with its original collection back in place, the grandeur of a building that only the elderly can remember in its original state has clearly been restored...