Art barrack
The art barracks on Berlin's Museum Island was an exhibition building for contemporary art that existed between 1875 and 1897 on the site of today's Bode Museum .
The Berlin art exhibitions in the academy
Every autumn since 1786, exhibitions of the Berlin artists have taken place in the electoral stables building on Dorotheenstadt , the building of the Prussian Academy of Arts on Unter den Linden. This tradition ended in 1875, as the rooms in the academy previously used for exhibitions were no longer available due to their reorganization.
The art barrack
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The art exhibitions have now been relocated to a specially newly constructed half-timbered building , which was located on “Kantianplatz” (first and actual spelling Cantian Platz , after Christian Gottlieb Cantian ) behind the New Museum and the New Packhof buildings on the northwestern tip of Museum Island. The building was located between the flour house of the bakers' guild and a storage building of the neighboring New Packhof (still built by Karl Friedrich Schinkel ) . It was partly built on a pile grid driven into the bottom of the Spree and was designed as a temporary measure. According to contemporaries, it only met modest demands. It is said to have resembled “more of a storage shed than an exhibition building”. That is why it was soon given the unflattering name of “art barracks” from the artist's joke. In an address book from 1880 it is listed as Prov. Art Exhibition Building .
A contemporary walker describes his impression of the complex as follows:
"A strangely quiet, remote corner is the northern tip of the Spree island Alt-Kölln, the so-called Cantianplatz with its more than modest artificial asylum, which in its arch-prose environment, crammed between the tax office, Packhof, Mehlbrücke and Kupfergraben, looks strange enough."
In addition to three somewhat larger halls, the art barracks contained a series of parallel galleries , in which only one of the walls was sufficiently illuminated by the high-mounted skylights. In addition, the relative narrowness of these galleries made it impossible for the viewer to take a sufficient distance from the screen when viewing the exhibited pictures.
The academy exhibitions were held in the art barracks from 1876 to 1881 and 1884.
Fire danger
On December 8, 1881, a terrible fire disaster occurred in the Vienna Ringtheater with many deaths. The following year there was also a fire in the Berlin hygiene exhibition, fortunately (but also coincidentally) there were no victims to complain about. These events made everyone in Berlin aware of the immense dangers of major events in fire-prone buildings. In 1882, the traditional annual exhibition of the Berlin artists was not held because the emergency building of the art barracks was judged to be too prone to fire.
In 1883 the academy exhibition, which is traditionally held in autumn, was moved to May and June in order to be able to use the not yet operational rooms of the huge new polytechnic on Charlottenburger Allee for this purpose. However, since these rooms turned out to be completely unsuitable, the following year, 1884, they dared to hold the exhibition in the art barracks again. Some structural fire protection measures were carried out here. After that, this exhibition location was completely abandoned and the art exhibition in 1885 was canceled due to the lack of suitable fire-proof rooms.
In 1886, on the centenary of the art exhibitions, it was decided to celebrate the event in a fitting setting. A glass palace on the exhibition grounds at Lehrter Bahnhof in Moabit was therefore converted at great expense to meet the requirements of an international art exhibition.
Demolition of the art barrack
The art barrack, which had become inoperative, was demolished some time afterwards in connection with the preparatory measures for the expansion of the museum area on Museum Island and the construction of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum (today: Bode Museum).
literature
- Friedrich Nicolai : Description of the royal royal cities of Berlin and Potsdam, all the peculiarities located there, and the surrounding area. (4 volumes). Berlin 1786.
- L. Pietsch: Berlin art exhibitions. In: Moritz von Reymond, Ludwig Manzel: Berliner Pflaster: illustrated portrayals from life in Berlin. Publishing house Dr. W. Pauli, Berlin 1891.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The presentation follows the information from L. Pietsch: Berliner Kunstausstellung. In: Moritz von Reymond, Ludwig Manzel: Berliner Pflaster: Illustrated descriptions from Berlin life. Berlin 1891. In particular pp. 176 and 178.
- ^ Friedrich Nicolai : Description of the royal residence cities Berlin and Potsdam. Vol. 2, Berlin 1786, p. 718.
- ↑ Cantian Place . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1880, part 2, p. 57.
- ^ Herbert Sidney: Berlin on water. In: M. Reymond u. a. (Ed.): Berliner Pflaster. Verlag von W. Pauli, Berlin 1891, p. 147 f.