David Chipperfield Architects
New Entrance Building
James Simon Gallery
Berlin, Germany
Image © David Chipperfield Architects
As a continuation of Friedrich August Stüler’s forum architecture, the New Entrance Building will complete the Museum Island ensemble between the Kupfergraben canal and the west facade of the Neues Museum. The project involves rearranging the relationships and open spaces between the Pergamon Museum and the Neues Museum (restored by David Chipperfield Architects), and giving architectural form to the large-scale urban qualities of the site.
Image © Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Imaging Atelier
A new colonnade continues Stüler’s colonnade, which at the moment ends at the Neues Museum, and forms a small colonnaded courtyard. As if it were built topographically, a high plinth occupies the bank of the Kupfergraben canal. Corresponding with the risalit basis of the Pergamon Museum, this new raised plateau is level with the Pergamon Museum’s main exhibition floor.
Photo © Richard Davies
The actual building volume of the New Entrance Building is situated between the elevated colonnade and the new colonnaded courtyard.
Photo © Richard Davies
A wide, open outdoor staircase develops from the front end of the building facing the Lustgarten as a generous entrance motif, providing the main access to the New Entrance Building. The visitor will thus be led to the upper level, corresponding with the Pergamon Museum’s main exhibition floor.
Image © David Chipperfield Architects
The architectural language of the New Entrance Building adopts existing elements of the Museum Island, predominantly from the outdoor architecture, such as built topography, colonnades and outdoor staircases. An authentically contemporary building is developed from this context, whose architectural language reflects classical architecture without copying it. The materiality of the building in reconstituted stone with natural stone aggregate blends in with the polychrome material palette of the Museum Island with its limestone, sandstone and rendered facades.
Sketch © David Chipperfield Architects
Sketch
Drawing © David Chipperfield Architects
Site Plan
Drawing © David Chipperfield Architects
Main Level Plan
Drawing © David Chipperfield Architects
Longitudinal Section
Drawing © David Chipperfield Architects
Cross Section
Total area: 9,500 square meters
Estimated completion: 2013
Client: Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz
Represented by:
BBR Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung IV
User: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Architect: David Chipperfield Architects
Structural Engineer: IGB Ingenieurgruppe Bauen
Service Engineers:
JMP Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH and Inros Lackner AG
Project Management: Wenzel + Wenzel
Landscape Architects: Levin Monsigny
David Chipperfield Architects arcspace features
April 12, 2010