Humboldt box

Humboldt box
View from the cathedral to the Humboldt Box in September 2011
Data
place	Berlin Spree Island in Berlin-Mitte
architect	KSV Kruger Schuberth Vandreike
Client	Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development
Construction year	Beginning of 2009
demolition	Early 2019
height	28 m
Floor space	3000 m²
Coordinates	52 ° 31 '4.3 "  N , 13 ° 24' 1.5"  E Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '4.3 "  N , 13 ° 24' 1.5"  E

The scaffolding for the shell of the Humboldt Box was initially covered with computer graphics from the Berlin City Palace, April 9, 2010

Humboldt-Box, June 2011

The Humboldt Box at night

View from the Humboldt-Box onto the Schloßbrücke and Karl-Liebknecht-Straße

The Humboldt-Box was from 2011 to 2018, a temporary exhibition building at the Berlin Palace Square opposite the Lustgarten in the district center . During the reconstruction of the city ​​palace and the installation of the Humboldt Forum , the box provided information about the history of the site and its future concept as a museum. Although it was a project of the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development , it was privately financed. An invitation to tender was issued to search for donors. In September 2009 the company Megaposter was awarded the contract.

The box's exhibition themes were the history, construction and future of the City Palace and the Humboldt Forum as well as information about new and interactive exhibition concepts that were developed for the Humboldt Forum. The focus here was on the non-European collection and global topics from the worlds of culture and science. In 2013 the Humboldt-Box registered 136,000 visitors. It was closed on December 16, 2018 and then dismantled.

background

The building with a viewing terrace and roof restaurant was 28 meters high and had a floor area of ​​more than 3000 square meters. One floor of the building also served as an event level.

The exhibitions in the Humboldt Box were designed by the Berlin Palace Foundation - Humboldt Forum and the future actors in the Humboldt Forum, the Ethnological Museum and the Museum for Asian Art of the State Museums in Berlin - Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Humboldt University . In addition, the Friends of the Berlin Palace were committed to soliciting donations for the production of replicas of the palace facade that were to be integrated into the forum.

The operator marketed advertising space on the facades of the new Berlin Palace and around the Humboldt-Box to finance the Humboldt-Box project. Two years after the Humboldt Box opened, the 500,000. Visitors are welcomed.

criticism

The height and location of the box were criticized from various quarters, which made the street Unter den Linden appear to be blocked off, and the view of the cathedral was partially blocked.

Hermann Parzinger , President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which helped design the exhibitions in the Humboldt-Box, emphasized that “you can finally see the capital as it would look from the Humboldt Forum”.

Press reviews

• "[At] the most central point of the city, a building has been built whose asymmetrical cubature and gaudy turquoise color scheme may provoke criticism, but will certainly be enthusiastically received by the population."
• “Wonderful Humboldt Box” was the title of a cover story in the Berliner Morgenpost , which has appreciated the development since it opened.
• “The box as a magnet” wrote the Tagesspiegel   on the occasion of the 250,000 visitors.
• The FAZ called it a provisional solution that represents the "contemporary form of cultural state failure".
• "Architectural monster in galactic proportions".

literature

• Sabine Ammon, Eva Maria Froschauer, Julia Gill, Constanze A. Petrow, Network Architecture Science (eds.): Z. B. Humboldt Box. Twenty architecture-scientific essays on a Berlin temporary solution. transcript-Verlag, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-8376-2671-1 .

Web links

Commons : Humboldt-Box  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• HumboldtBox ( Memento from September 22, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
• The Humboldt Box on the architects website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Humboldt Box can be built. In: Der Tagesspiegel . July 15, 2008, accessed June 14, 2011.
2. ↑ Andreas Rosenfelder: The Humboldt Box, sloppiness as part of the concept. In: The world . Retrieved December 28, 2018 . 
3. ↑ Excursion destinations in Germany - numbers memento
4. ↑ Only open for five weeks: on December 16, the Friends of the Berlin Palace will close the palace exhibition in the Humboldt Box . In: Berlin Week . ( berliner-woche.de [accessed on November 13, 2018]).
5. ↑ Press release from the Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing
6. ↑ Cooperation, commitment and communication. ( Memento of November 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) at: humboldt-box.com , accessed on November 8, 2013.
7. ↑ Alexander Haneke: Trouble about huge advertising space in front of the Humboldt Box. In: Der Tagesspiegel . Retrieved December 28, 2018 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Kilb The box is coming. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . July 8, 2010. (FAZ-Online)
9. ↑ Isabell Jürgens, Gabriela Walde The box of the republic has a panoramic view. In: Die Welt Kompakt . June 30, 2011, accessed March 26, 2012.
10. ↑ Wonderful Humboldt box. In: Berliner Morgenpost . February 25, 2012 (Morgenpost online print archive)
11. ↑ Lothar Heinke : Magnet Humboldt Box. In: Der Tagesspiegel . February 14, 2012. (Tagesspiegel-Online , accessed November 8, 2013.)
12. ↑ Lothar Heinke The large block from Schlossplatz. In: Der Tagesspiegel . June 11, 2011 (Tagesspiegel-Online , accessed June 14, 2011.)