Neues Museum by David Chipperfield Architects

Rarely has the re-construction of a cultural building been praised so concordantly like the careful renewal of the Neues Museum on the Museumsinsel (museum island) in Berlin. The numerous awards read like the list of Oscar awards. Apart from the BDA award Berlin, the Great Nike 2010, the main award of the architectural prize of the Bund Deutscher Architekten BDA (Association of German Architects), plus the Nike perfection in detail, the Detail Prize 2011 as well as the DAM architectural award 2010, there were also international acknowledgements, e.g. the 2010 Edition of the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage/ Europa Nostra Awards, AIA UK 2010 Excellence in Design Awards, RIBA Awards 2010 as well as the RIBA Crown Estate Conservation Award and, just recently, the renowned “Preis der Europäischen Union für zeitgenössische Architektur” (Award of the European Union for contemporary Architecture), the Mies-van-der-Rohe-Award.

Restoring the Neues Museum

With such a blaze of glory it’s hard to find your own words, since everything has already been said really. So let’s try a quote from David Chipperfield to begin with: “This is not about scars, but about remembrance and history. It’s like with a painting: If it’s unfinished and you complete it, it’s not original any longer.”

After being a sleeping beauty for 60 years, a planning period of eleven years, six years of construction time, several building freezes and financing problems, the Neues Museum in Berlin is no monument of high-gloss restored architecture, but a vivid place. A complex that doesn’t promise any mumbo-jumbo, but radiates authenticity and history. In which, on the one hand, the original structure has been preserved balancing on the fine line between restoration and reconstruction, including the various damages caused by time and destruction. And, on the other hand, a closed special impression has been preserved with the architecture pulling back to allow the precious exhibits to fill the stage.

The Museum’s special Charm

Already back then the building by the Schinkel student Friedrich August Stühler was path-breaking. From a museological point of view, granting citizens thirsting for education a holistic approach into foreign worlds through its universal character, and from a constructional point of view the use of industrially ready-made building materials. Best possible harmony with the items to be exhibited, Stühler’s dream, still works today. Even as the exhibits are just as battered from the long decay as the building itself. But this is exactly what makes this place so charming. The rest is something everybody has to discover for himself.


Constructor: Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian cultural heritage trust), represented by the Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung (Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning)
Architect: David Chipperfield Architects Ltd
Restorations: Julian Harrap Architects, Pro Denkmal
Status:Construction time: 1997 - 2009
Size: GFA: 20,500 sqm