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- Title
Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin. Grundinstandsetzung.
- Authors
Wegener, Gerrit
- Abstract
Planned by Mies van der Rohe and built in 1968, the New National Gallery in Berlin is undergoing a farreaching refurbishment process. Repairing this monument of gracefulness and simplicity, damaged by over forty years of continuous use, bears many challenges from the point of view of historic preservation. A first challenge concerns the collection and transmission of information on the building. As many documents were lost soon after completion of the building, a comprehensive Historic Survey Report had to be worked out in 2010. Archive research and interviews provided not only technical details for the planning phase, but also highlighted the institutional context in which the New National Gallery was built. This allows a better understanding of the various interests at stake in the process. A second challenge pertains to the technical and legal aspects of the refurbishment process as well as to the question of how to deal with the existing building. Already in the building stage, a certain number of safety regulations were disregarded to implement the plans of Mies van der Rohe. Beyond this, the building does not satisfy all the requirements of a museum building, for instance as regards the storage of art pieces or the services to visitors. Together with the difficulty nowadays to find some of the original building materials or to implement some of the techniques used in the late 1960s, this raises the question of how to combine the historic preservation with the necessities of modernisation. Led by David Chipperfield Architects, the design process started in 2012 and since January 2015, the New National Gallery is closed with the construction work to be started soon. The issues raised in this paper help to better understand the key role of the architect as a moderator and mediator in a highly challenging project of historical preservation.
- Subjects
GERMANY; NEUE Nationalgalerie Berlin (Germany); MIES van der Rohe, Ludwig, 1886-1969; PRESERVATION of museum architecture; MUSEUM building design &; construction; MUSEUM buildings; DAVID Chipperfield Architects
- Publication
Architectura: Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Baukunst, 2014, Issue 2, p151
- ISSN
0044-863X
- Publication type
Article