Cultural Institution
Berlin, Germany
The design for this 27,700 m² addition to the Neue Nationalgalerie complex in Berlin’s Kulturforum district is generated from a series of collages that build upon surrounding contextual and historical elements, including grid and typological manipulations, to stitch the complex existing urban fabrics.
A system of shear walls suspends the mass above the ground plane, promoting existing circulation paths through the site, celebrating its historical use as a public plaza.
The shear walls are organized along a grain that prompts a visual circulatory procession through the spaces. These paths lead to both grid abnormalities – curved spaces that provide vertical circulation – and circulatory irrationalities with dead ends that create formal moments for reflection.
The two art collections are separated in the building across a diagonal massing hierarchy, reflecting the division between the American and French/British territories in post-WWII West Berlin, thus suggesting the conflict between the foundation’s impressionist and surrealist collections.
