469 Neue Nationalgalerie – Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts

Matthäuskirche looks a little lost and uprooted today. We are building a neighborhood for it, like the buildings that used to line the street until they were destroyed. And we are interested in the material of the church—brick. It is a building material that can be interpreted as a digital field and yet, at the same time, there is something archaic about a brick wall. A house as a built form has always existed and yet it eludes clear-cut fixation or programmatic classification. It is an open-ended shape, open to different uses and interpretations. Like the above-mentioned brick, the archaic shape of a house is a constituent of both contemporary digital culture and traditional civilizations of old.

The house for art of the 20th century looks very different from different sides. Is it a warehouse? A barn? Or maybe a railroad station? Isn’t it more like a temple with exactly the same gable proportions as the Alte Nationalgalerie by August Stüler? Whatever the case, it is a place to store things as in a warehouse, a place for provisions and supplies like a farm, and a place of encounter and connection like a railroad station. And—like a temple—it is also a place of quiet and contemplation for the perception not just of art but of oneself.

City Planning

The choice of the archaic shape of a house, the urban idea of having the building occupy the entire plot of land, and the cross-shaped circulation on the interior of our project for the Museum of the 20th Century—all these decisions are inseparably linked, incorporating architecture, brief, and city planning into a specific whole designed to suit this and only this location.

Since the end of the war, the Berlin Kulturforum has developed into an internationally renowned site, hosting important institutions, invaluable collections, and first rate, but separate and self-contained architecture. The site is not integrated into a stringent urban whole. The various parts are not interrelated. Today’s “empty spaces” could, however, become squares and the Nationalgalerie and the Philharmonie, now somewhat lost and lonely, could be drawn in to become important actors in a diversified urban whole. Connecting and interrelating all the parts is the overriding aim of our project for a Museum of the 20th Century. The Museum will be a place of intersecting paths, a place that encourages exchange among different mentalities and outlooks. There are several entrances to the Museum because it is oriented in all directions. Obviously, there will be an entrance at Potsdamer Strasse at the beginning of the east-west axis, which takes visitors past the galleries directly into the center of the building and from there to Matthäikirchplatz and on up to the Piazzetta. One could say that the Museum of the 20th Century will become a gate to the Piazzetta, hitherto somewhat detached, and will thus draw attention to the art collections that are located there. The north entrance at Scharounplatz takes a prominent position. This is where the spacious portico of the Museum opens up towards the Philharmonie and the Chamber Music Hall.

The sweeping architectural gesture of the spacious gabled area and the staircase evokes classical architecture, a style that is hardly new to Berlin. It is much more important to us, however, to ensure diverse, practical means of meeting the daily needs and uses of visitors, curators, and artists. The gesture of walking in and down the stairs leads not only to the Museum itself, but also—as an extension of the north-south boulevard—underneath Sigismundstrasse to the exhibition spaces of the Nationalgalerie. In this respect, the gabled area of the north entrance is like a two-headed Janus, facing the Philharmonie, on one side and reaching out spatially all the way to the Nationalgalerie, on the other.

Interior Organization

The four quadrants of the Museum are accessed by two intersecting streets. These are actually more like boulevards than streets since they invite visitors to stay for a while, to look at the art together with others, or quite simply to meet someone. Light penetrates deep into the building through the large gabled roof and the tall central boulevard, which contains special places for people to work both in daylight and artificial light. Thus, it is an atrium in the heart of the Museum, in contrast to the atrium in the neighboring Nationalgalerie. Openings in the exhibition spaces look onto the central court and provide orientation.

As in a city, the intersection is the liveliest place. The entire building and its structure can be taken in a single glance from the center. In addition, the intersection can accommodate large-scale works of art—works created specifically for the location as well as existing ones. There are four exhibition spaces above the central axes that reach up to the roof. They are houses in their own right and they are very distinctive spaces that would be suitable platforms for the avant-garde as well as work in larger formats created after 1945.

The media department is accessed directly from the portico facing the Philharmonie allowing for events to be organized outside of opening hours. Even when Museum is closed, the broad staircase—not primarily monumental architecture but above all a polyfunctional feature—can also serve as seating for lectures, plays, concerts, films, and performances. The stairs also lead up to the core of the building with ticketing, cloak rooms, and entrances to the exhibition halls. The boulevards form a single, large space so that there is no impression of being in a basement story.

Visitors can enter each of the quadrants directly from the boulevard, while the galleries are internally interconnected so that, alternatively, uninterrupted tours can be conducted as well. The café and restaurant are located on the first floor around the plantain in the northeast quadrant, and the second floor houses studios for restoration. The three remaining quadrants are mostly flexible galleries that can be modified in response to curatorial needs. The proposed layout of the collection is one of several possibilities, which we could work out in collaboration with the curators.

In our proposal, the galleries of the Marx Collection in the southeast quadrant would be organized around Joseph Beuys’ ”Das Kapital,” a two-story anchor room. Prints and drawings would be in the southwest quadrant and the northeast quadrant would be reserved for temporary presentations. Each of the quadrants would accommodate a specific aspect of the Museum and thus acquire an identity of its own.

Landscape Design

All the elements of the Kulturforum have their own identity and their own distinctively paved bases. We feed into this concept by highlighting what is already there and adding a new flagstone plaza as a central, unifying element in the heart of the Kulturforum.

In analogy to the base of the Neue Nationalgalerie, we propose a wall along the Piazzetta. Ramps to the south and to the north as well as a flight of stairs up to Scharounplatz link the Piazzetta with the newly created central plaza. The Museum for the 20th Century stands on this brick-paved area that includes and encloses Matthäuskirche, Matthäikirchplatz, and Scharounplatz. Instead of distinguishing the material of the plaza from that of the building, the brick façades of the Museum and the church merge with the pavement of the city. An elongated flight of stairs with an integrated ramp along the west façade of the Museum echoes the former row of buildings and acts as a transition and orientation toward the historical Matthäikirchplatz. The formal structure of the square is preserved and reinvigorated by a pond that follows the axis of the church and is framed by a double row of linden trees (Tilia platyphyllos). Scharounplatz connects Potsdamer Strasse and the Piazzetta. Similar to Unter den Linden, we propose inserting patches of gravel in the brick pavement in the shade of the linden trees (Tilia cordata). While the gravel area under the trees is more contemplative, the brick-paved Scharounplatz is suitable for hosting installations, events, and performances. The parking area in front of the Chamber Music Hall could be greened, echoing the tradition of Scharoun’s Philharmonie garden to the north. A large polygonal water basin defines the southern edge of the new forecourt of the Philharmonie and forms the center of a polygonal garden with grass, trees, gravel paths, and benches. Species of trees that are also found in the Tiergarten (oak, beech, hornbeam) define the character of the garden and lend structure to the landscape in the form of precise groves along Potsdamer Strasse. Two additional green polygons could structure the large area in front of the Staatsbibliothek. From here, a broad pedestrian walkway crosses Potsdamer Strasse and connects the Staatsbibliothek with the Museum of the 20th Century. Potsdamer Strasse is marked by a double row of linden trees (Tilia tomentosa) down the central strip, their lower branches pruned to make room for the streetcar track.

Herzog & de Meuron, 2016