The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the

Kulturforum The Kulturforum ( en, Cultural Forum) is a collection of cultural buildings in Berlin. It was built up in the 1950s and 1960s at the edge of West Berlin, after most of the once unified city's cultural assets had been lost behind the Berlin Wal ...

is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the

National Gallery The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...

of the

Berlin State Museums The Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters, several research institutes, libraries, and supporting facilities. They are overseen ...

. The museum building and its sculpture gardens were designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and opened in 1968. The gallery closed in 2015 for renovation. The work, by David Chipperfield Architects, was completed in 2021, and the museum reopened in August 2021 with an exhibition of works by American sculptor

Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and hi ...

Collection

The collection features a number of unique highlights of modern 20th-century art. Particularly well represented are Cubism, Expressionism, the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...

and Surrealism. The collection owns masterpieces of artists like

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th-century ...

, Joan Miró,

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

and Barnett Newman. The design of the building, despite its large size, allows for the display of only a small part of the collection, and the displays are therefore changed at intervals.

Architecture

Dimensions, specifications and materials

The plan of the Neue Nationalgalerie is divided into two distinct stories. The upper story serves as an entrance hall as well as the primary special exhibit gallery, totaling of space. It is elevated from street level and only accessible by three flights of steps. Though it only comprises a small portion of the total gallery space, the exhibition pavilion stands boldly as the building's primary architectural expression. Eight cruciform columns, two on each length placed so as to avoid corners, support a square pre-stressed steel roof plate thick and painted black. An

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cant ...

allows for ample space between the gallery's glazed façade and eight supporting columns. Mies' office studied this cantilever extensively in various scaled models in order to ensure its structural stability as well as the seeming flatness of the roof plate. The floor-to-ceiling height reaches , and the space is laid out on a square dimensional grid. Black anodized aluminum "egg crates" fit within the grid house lighting fixtures, with air ducts suspended above. The lower story serves primarily as housing for the gallery's permanent collection, though it also includes a library, offices, and a shop and café, and totals about of space. It is three-quarters below ground so as to allow for safe storage of the artwork. Its sole glazed façade looks out on the museum's sloping sculpture garden and provides ample indirect interior lighting. A rooftop plaza further extends the museum's exhibition space.

Contemporaneous projects

In 1956, José M. Bosch, President of Ron Bacardí y Compañía approached Mies to commission the design of a new office space. He was particularly interested in a very open plan, and the relatively simple idea Mies came up with involved a square roof plate supported on each side by two columns. Though initial structural challenges had to be dealt with, the resulting pavilion

typology Typology is the study of types or the systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics. Typology is the act of finding, counting and classification facts with the help of eyes, other senses and logic. Ty ...

became integral to Mies' architectural lexicon, in many ways the epitome of his universal conception of space. The Bacardí Building was abandoned in September 1960 due to general political unrest in Cuba, but at the same time, two other museum commissions were brought to Mies' office. Georg Schaefer, a wealthy industrialist living in

Schweinfurt Schweinfurt ( , ; ) is a city in the district of Lower Franconia in Bavaria, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the surrounding district (''Landkreis'') of Schweinfurt and a major industrial, cultural and educational hub. The urban ag ...

approached Mies about the construction of a museum for his nineteenth-century art collection during the summer of 1960. A modest initial plan was drawn for the structure, but later that year Mies decided to reconfigure the unbuilt Bacardí project to fit Schaefer's program as he wished to see it built. Consequently, a scaled-down model of the Bacardí project this time rendered in steel rather than concrete was created. In March 1961, Mies also received a letter from the Senator for Building and Housing in Berlin, inviting him to build what was to be called the Neue Nationalgalerie, an exhibition space for the state's collection of early twentieth-century art. The two museum projects, though slightly different in scale, where to be essentially identical in form, both a version in steel of the original Barcardí design. Though the Schweinfurt project never came to fruition, the reductive exercise of continual reconfiguration allowed for the perfection of Mies' expression in Berlin, and the Neue Nationalgalerie remains as the sole built form of the initial tripartite conception.

Aesthetic importance

Much of Mies' syntactical development throughout the three building progression leading up to the Neue Nationalgalerie was prefigured in an earlier project for a Museum for a Small City. This project was published in a special May 1943 edition of ''

Architectural Forum ''Architectural Forum'' was an American magazine that covered the homebuilding industry and architecture. Started in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1892 as ''The Brickbuilder'', it absorbed the magazine ''Architect's World'' in October 1938. Ownership ...

''. In his publication, Mies describes a seemingly floating roof plane, suspended above a single clear-span space punctuated by equidistant columns. This project is now seen as a significant move on Mies' part toward the alleviation of interior space by both defining and minimizing structural enclosure, thus joining exterior and interior space in a meaningful way. The structure itself, a composite of little more than ground plane, support and roof, thus becomes the building. The aesthetic importance of the clear-span was directly related to Mies' conception of museum space in general, a "defining, rather than confining space". The completely open nature of the plan also serves to eliminate the barrier between art and community, simultaneously breaking down the reverence enacted by severely partitioned spaces and inviting interaction between viewer and art. The overall aesthetic affect is thus one of vitalizing liberation. This infinitely transformative capability and universality is also seen in Mies' buildings from the intervening years, namely the

Farnsworth House The Edith Farnsworth House, formerly the Farnsworth House, is a historical house designed and constructed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe between 1945 and 1951. The house was constructed as a one-room weekend retreat in a rural setting in Plano, I ...

Plano, Illinois Plano is a city near Aurora in Kendall County, Illinois, United States, with a population of 11,847 as of the 2020 census. It is part of the Chicago metropolitan area, being about 55 miles (90 km) from Chicago. The city was home to the Plano Har ...

, and

Crown Hall S. R. Crown Hall, designed by the German-American Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, is the home of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois. History Before the building of Crown Hall, t ...

of the

Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

campus. Various commentators have recognized the structure's ties to classical building, seeing it as a modern temple whose monumental simplicity evinces the immense skill behind its design and conception.

Criticism

The ability of clearly articulated external structures to alleviate façades and create large-scale universal spaces required certain boldness on the part of the client. The ineffable expression of the Neue Nationalgalerie's entrance pavilion had certain logistical downsides. Its smooth granite flooring reflects the warm natural light that floods the space, creating hazy shadow and making curatorial efforts notoriously complicated. The singular expression of the pavilion space also relegated the lower story to a secondary position, presenting further difficulties for the display of artwork involving a lack of natural lighting and relatively pedestrian layout of viewing space. When asked later to renovate and expand the building's lower story, Mies refused, as to do so would destroy the perfect proportions of the temple above. He originally conceived of the entrance pavilion as a place for very large works, allowing for unencumbered visual interaction and for use of the piece as space element in itself. An early collage included in the May 1943 ''

'' article about Museum for a Small City includes Picasso's ''

Guernica Guernica (, ), official name (reflecting the Basque language) Gernika (), is a town in the province of Biscay, in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, Spain. The town of Guernica is one part (along with neighbouring Lumo) of the mu ...

'', along with other large, plane-like paintings. Yet smaller works had to be shown on moveable freestanding walls or hanging partitions, making a curator's ability to effectively differentiate spaces difficult.

David Chipperfield renovation

Having had no thorough modernization since its inauguration, the Neue Nationalgalerie required upgrades to its air-conditioning, lighting, security, accessibility, visitor facilities and the behind-the-scenes infrastructure for moving art. In 2012 it was announced that British architect David Chipperfield would oversee a major renovation of the building. In a non-competitive selection process common for public contracts in Germany, his firm was chosen for the contract out of 24 architectural firms based on a two-stage negotiation process. Originally planned for €101 million, the €140 million renovation project started in 2015 and was originally expected to last three years, during which time the museum was closed. Original building elements, such as handrails and shelves, were removed, restored and reinstalled in their previous locations. Archival material dating from the construction at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York and the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

in Washington, DC, helped the architects remain true to Mies’s design. Meanwhile, the structural framework of the roof, which rests on eight steel beams, and the glass facade was restored.

Permanent art installations

The Neue Nationalgalerie's ceiling, constructed as a grid of black-painted steel beams, has been used as an exhibit surface in itself for ''Installation for the Neue Nationalgalerie'', an installation of long lines of LCD displays by artist

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, ...

in 2001, which continuously scrolled abstract patterns down their length. The Neue Nationalgalerie's terrace provides a particularly prominent space for large-scale pieces of sculpture from the 20th century. Permanently installed sculptures include ''Gudari'' (1957) by

Eduardo Chillida Eduardo Chillida Juantegui, or Eduardo Txillida Juantegi in Basque (10 January 1924 – 19 August 2002), was a Spanish Basque sculptor notable for his monumental abstract works. Early life and career Born in San Sebastián (Donostia) to P ...

, ''Polis'' (1968) by

Joannis Avramidis Joannis Avramidis ( el, Iωάννης Aβραμίδης; born 23 September 1922 – 16 January 2016) was a contemporary Greek-Austrian sculptor. He was born in Batumi, Soviet Union to a family of Pontic Greeks. He began studying painting at ...

, the kinetic metal sculpture ''Vier Vierecke im Geviert'' (1969) by

George Rickey George Warren Rickey (June 6, 1907 – July 17, 2002) was an American kinetic sculptor. Early life and education Rickey was born on June 6, 1907, in South Bend, Indiana. When Rickey was still a child, his father, an executive with Singer S ...

, ''Three Way Piece No.2: The Archer'' (1964–65) by Henry Moore, ''Têtes et Queue'' (1965) by

, and ''Berlin Block Charlie Chaplin'' (1978) by

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, Urban area, urban, and Architecture, architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material q ...

. In 2003, with the permission of the Barnett Newman Foundation, a fourth edition of the sculpture ''Broken Obelisk'' (1963) by Barnett Newman was cast and temporarily installed in front of the museum. In 2011, Thomas Schütte's work ''Vater Staat'' (2010) was donated by

Nicolas Berggruen Nicolas Berggruen (; born 10 August 1961) is a US-based billionaire investor and philanthropist. Born in Paris, France, he is a dual American and German citizen.Jeremy Kahn (October 25, 2011)''Bloomberg'' He is the founder and president of Berggru ...

and installed on the terrace. Many other pieces of sculpture - by artists from Auguste Renoir to

Ulrich Rückriem Ulrich Rückriem (born 30 September 1938) is a German sculptor notable for his monumental stone sculptures. He lives and works in Cologne and London. His abstract works of art are often assigned to the style of minimalism and process art. Lif ...

- are on permanent display in the museum's garden.

Directors

* 1967–1974: Werner Haftmann * 1974–1975: Wieland Schmied * 1975–1997: Dieter Honisch * 1999–2008: Peter-Klaus Schuster * 2008–2020: Udo Kittelmann * 2020:-2022 Joachim Jäger * Since January 1, 2022:

Klaus Biesenbach Klaus Biesenbach (born 1966)Erica Orden (December 26, 2009)Herr Zeitgeist''New York Magazine''. is a European American curator and the museum director. He is the Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, with Berggruen Museum and Scharf-Gerstenberg Co ...

Images

Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin - von oben.jpg, A view from above Berlin Neue Nationalgalerie asv2021-11 img2.jpg, Entrance side with ''Three Way Piece No. 2: The Archer'' Neue Nationalgalerie P7130065.JPG, Interior view Stamps of Germany (Berlin) 1986, MiNr 753.jpg, German stamp from 1986

References

* * *

External links

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
{{Authority control Buildings and structures completed in 1968 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe buildings Art museums and galleries in Berlin Modern art museums in Germany Modernist architecture in Germany Art museums established in 1968 1968 establishments in Germany