Modern masterpiece: Berlin’s contemporary art gallery reopens after six-year revamp
THE most important house of modern art in Germany, Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, reopened yesterday after a noexpenses-spared refurbishment by British architect David Chipperfield.
Some 1,500 visitors were able to enter the modernist masterpiece after a sixyear renovation that cost €140million (£120million). With the pandemic still causing restrictions on entry, visitors had to book time slots and the opening day was sold out weeks in advance.
Monika Grütters, Germany’s culture minister, heralded the opening as a “brilliant comeback as a pilgrimage site for lovers of modern art and as a stage for contemporary artists”.
Built on the edge of West Berlin in the 1960s by father of Bauhaus architecture Mies van der Rohe, the Neue Nationalgalerie was not universally liked when first opened, but has since been one of the most iconic views in the German capital’s cityscape.
Its steel roof plane, weighing more than 1,000 tons, is held up by eight thin columns, giving the impression that it is floating.
But wear and tear over the 50 years since its opening in 1968 meant that the building’s glass facade had become tarnished, detracting from the impression of a floating ceiling and obscuring the view of the adjacent Philharmonie concert hall.
Furthermore, the lack of accessibility for disabled people to the galleries on the lower floor, plus the need for a new air ventilation system, meant that an overhaul was long overdue.
Chipperfield has spoken of his task as keeping “as much Mies as possible”. “One would only be visible if one made mistakes. It’s an intellectual challenge. And that was the interesting thing for me,” he told the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper.
The interior of the building, including its marble columns, was painstakingly disassembled at the beginning of renovation work, which included adding a lift, a modern LED lighting system and underfloor heating.