New Museum (Berlin)

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West facade of the Neues Museum, 2009

The New Museum in Berlin district of Mitte is part of the architectural ensemble of the Museum Island and the World Heritage Site of UNESCO . Built on behalf of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV in 1843–1855 in the classicism and neo-renaissance style, it is regarded as the main work of Friedrich August Stüler .

After its destruction in the Second World War and the decline in the GDR era, it was restored in a simplified form by David Chipperfield in 1999–2009 . It is currently home to the Egyptian Museum and the Papyrus Collection , the Museum of Prehistory and Early History and part of the Antiquities Collection .

In 2019, the Neues Museum recorded 828,000 visitors, making it the most-visited museum among the state museums.

The museum (Chipperfield building)

Reconstruction from 1999 to 2009

After the foundations and walls had been carefully secured, the museum was rebuilt between 1999 and 2009 as part of the Museum Island master plan for around 295 million euros. During the restoration, the completely destroyed north-west wing and the south-east projectile were rebuilt according to plans by the English architect David Chipperfield, closely following the original volumes and room sequences , and the remaining components were restored and supplemented. Since reopening on October 16, 2009, two Berlin museums have returned to their original locations: the Egyptian Museum with the papyrus collection and the Museum of Prehistory and Early History.

Entrance area of ​​the reopened restored museum in March 2009

The reconstruction as part of the Museum Island master plan followed the concept of supplementary restoration . This included closing the courtyard and exterior facades of the building above the historical floor plan. Structural elements of the façades that have been preserved have been incorporated into the added façades, original findings on the building have been preserved and the numerous components that have been removed have been reintegrated. The additions are shown openly and can be read.

This concept was binding for the 1993 international architecture competition for the reconstruction of the New Museum, which did not produce any satisfactory results. In 1997 the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation commissioned the architect David Chipperfield to rebuild the Neues Museum. In his plans he replaces the destroyed south-east projection and the north-west wing with replacement buildings of the same volume. In terms of material and structure, the brickwork of the new facades follows the preserved north elevation and the south-west wing. He renounces the reconstruction of lost interior fittings, especially the large staircase. Chipperfield secures, repairs and completes the ruins of the New Museum, which, in his words, “should escape a dehistoric reconstruction as well as a romanticized old-new rhetoric or the monumentalization of its destruction”. After the loss of classicist interior fittings in the Glyptothek and the Alte Pinakothek in Munich as a result of the Second World War, the partly preserved interior of the Neues Museum is one of the last remaining evidence of museum construction in Germany.

On June 27, 2007, David Chipperfield presented the first revision of his generally criticized design from 2001 under the title Berliner Akropolis . The transparent and filigree-looking colonnade building on a high basement facing the western arm of the Spree met with a broad response from the Berlin public and mostly positive reactions.

Visitor Center and Archaeological Promenade

In addition to the renovation of the individual museums, the Museum Island master plan includes the consolidation of the houses into a museum complex. Central elements of this summary are the new reception building with visitor center, the James-Simon-Galerie , and the Archaeological Promenade , which connects all buildings on Museum Island with the exception of the Old National Gallery as an underground tour. The promenade runs through the Neues Museum in the Greek courtyard, under the great staircase hall and in the Egyptian courtyard with exhibitions on the topics of chaos and cosmos , time and history, and death and transfiguration . During the renovation phase, however, only the rooms within the Neues Museum will be created. The connecting pieces to the Altes Museum and the Pergamon Museum will be added later. The James-Simon-Galerie, also based on a design by David Chipperfield, is to be built between the Kupfergraben and the New Museum. The early release of 73 million euros after a longer planning stop for the visitor center on November 9, 2006 suggests that construction will start in 2009 and completion in 2011/2012. This should go hand in hand with an extensive revision of the original drafts, which critics complained about as being too modern and unsuitable for the environment.

On June 24, 2003, on the occasion of the ceremony to mark the start of construction on the Neues Museum , State Minister for Culture Christina Weiss stated that the master plan “almost managed to square the circle: to emphasize the buildings as a historical heritage, to sensibly direct the flow of visitors and to establish a modern infrastructure [ …] Ready. ”With the foreseeable delays in the realization of the James-Simon-Galerie and the Archaeological Promenade, the restored museum will have to deal with the flow of visitors on its own when it reopens in 2009. In any case, the restored building will represent a permanent stone memorial for its first master builder Friedrich August Stüler, according to whose wish “the whole should form a center for the highest intellectual interests of the people, which no other capital city would have to offer. "

Criticism of the reconstruction concept

Embedded consoles and two capitals from the Egyptian court

As early as 1997, the deputy director of the Berlin palace administration, Helmut Börsch-Supan, criticized the later reconstruction concept. The Neues Museum has a “right to be relived in its original idea because a presentation as a fragment with its own aesthetic effect would subordinate the builder's plan to the design intentions of a descendant”. At the time, the Berlin state curator Helmut Engel also called for the reconstruction concept for the New Museum to be developed “not solely from the conventional doctrines of monument preservation”.

The Gesellschaft Historisches Berlin e. In addition to the new construction of the entrance building, V. criticized the type of reconstruction. In its petition, submitted in March 2006 with over 14,000 signatures to the German Bundestag, the society turned against the construction of the glass entrance building initially planned in 2001 based on a design by David Chipperfield. This was justified with the fear that the new entrance building could cover two thirds of the west facade of the Neues Museum. The possible loss of the World Heritage status of the Museum Island as a result of the design of the new building was also cited as an argument. The company asked for the façades and the large staircase to be faithfully restored.

Since March 5, 2007, the Berlin initiative Volksbegehren - Save Museum Island has been collecting signatures for a referendum . The Berlin Senate was called upon to strictly preserve the integrity of the Berlin Museum Island as a world cultural heritage site and to ensure that there is no further structural development in the form of a new building on Museum Island. The Berlin Senate should determine that the interior and exterior design of the Neues Museum should be based as much as possible on the original plans by Stülers. In particular, the initiative met the approach of the Berlin monument protection and property developers with incomprehension that the conservation of war damage and weathering damage may be rated higher than the restoration of the original condition. In particular, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which owns the cardboard boxes from the Kaulbach painting cycle for the Great Staircase, was accused of lacking responsibility in handling a unique museum building from the classicist era, as it did not decide to restore it true to the original.

Levels 0-3

Nefertiti

The three above-ground floors of the museum are accessible via the monumental open staircase.

On the lower floor in the form of a vault there are collections from Pharaonic and Greek times to the world of the afterlife. A staircase leads down from this lower floor into a modeled burial chamber.

In Stage 1 (entry level) are finds from Schliemann's Troy, issued from Cyprus and Egypt.

Berlin gold hat

On level 2 , special exhibits in room 201 are the “ Xanten Boy ”, a bronze figure that has largely been preserved over the centuries, and the bust of Nefertiti from around 1340 BC. Exhibited in the north dome hall 210. A line of sight exists between the north dome hall with Nefertiti and the south dome hall 203 with a larger than life statue of the Roman sun god Helios. The migration of peoples and the expansion of the Roman provinces are also illustrated.

On level 3 , the Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age, Ice Age, New Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age are presented systematically and very comprehensively with finds. A special exhibit is the " Berlin Gold Hat " in room 305 from the Bronze Age, from the years 1000–800 BC. BC, from southern Germany with star symbols lined up in a ribbon.

In 2010, the first year after its reopening, the Neues Museum was the best-visited museum in Berlin with 1.1 million visitors. In the following years 903,000 (2011) and 701,000 people (2012) visited the museum.

Reception after reopening

Per

In the Egyptian Court, 2011

In his description of impressions of the restored interiors of the Neues Museum, entitled “Brittle Sensation”, Heinrich Wefing uses the bombed-out ruins of the past decades as a contrast: “The wind blew through fire-blackened pillared halls, grandiose vaults crumbled away. A compelling torso, all pain and beauty. ”Chipperfield's approach to restoration, to preserve and supplement the fragments of the original substance room by room, is based on a“ respect for the historical, which forbids any total reconstruction by itself. ”This emerges despite a reduced range of materials dark oak, bronze and fine concrete with admixtures of marble, however, no harmony:

“This house is a three-dimensional collage, a whirlwind of impressions, room moods, emotional and architectural upheavals. […] The real sensation of the Neues Museum, however, is the realization that this juxtaposition of opposites, the lack of a large homogeneous whole, does not detract from viewing pleasure. On the contrary, the visitor wanders through the house in amazement, sometimes happy, sometimes shaking his head, never sure what is waiting behind the next door, and feels sensually moved like rarely in a museum. "

In the reopened building fully equipped with exhibits - "Whether cult, art or everyday life, whether primeval or modern - this museum dares to gain an overview like hardly any other." - According to Hanno Rauterberg, most of the exhibits hold their own against the architectural diversity: "Cleverly designed showcases attract attention, impressively grouped sculptures attract everyone's attention." There is also "a lot of interaction, many rapid gaze lanes, for example from Nefertiti across the centuries to Helios, from one reign of the sun to the next." For Rautenberg, the Neue Museum is an expression of a completely different historical awareness than prevailed at the inauguration in the 19th century:

“This image of history once heralded eternal progress, it pervaded the entire house, and everyone who entered it should be drawn with it, from the Stone Age upwards, through antiquity and the Renaissance to the glorious present. Inspired by Hegel's philosophy, human history appeared here as a straight line development, as an unstoppable ascent - and of course Prussia was the culmination of all endeavors. The museum, a place of state self-presentation. "

While in the original state sarcophagi or vases would have fitted seamlessly into the wall-painted "walk-in historical panoramas", today all the backdrops and all the illusions of history are riddled with holes, and so the Neues Museum der Gegenwart is characterized by humility:

“It's a very tempting form that not only reflects the hermeneutics of archaeologists and historians, but interestingly also something of the essence of the works of art on display. Many owe themselves to the desire to overcome the end, death. The exuberant art of the Egyptians, in particular, would not have come about without the pursuit of an eternal life here. In the museum, a modern form of the burial chamber, this dream seems to be fulfilled, albeit again in a paradoxical sense. The ruinousness of the building testifies on the one hand to the transience of everything earthly; on the other hand, everything transient becomes imperishable here. In this way, the museum comforts beyond finitude - precisely by showing its wounds, it promises the timeless. "

Contra

In the Greek Court, 2011

In connection with the reopening of the Neues Museum in der Welt , Dankwart Guratzsch criticized the fact that the “overwhelming room creations by the architect Friedrich August Stüler from the mid-19th century” would be contrasted with a “restoration philosophy of fractures, spots and ruins” a "didactics of the raised index finger" would like to point out that the building is only a "remnant of the original from 1855" glued together.

“The joy of the rebirth of a treasure house for unique exhibits is mixed with the disappointment that an artificial ruin was created here with enormous intellectual effort and for the unbelievable sum of 233 million euros, while the majesty of the former work of art was sacrificed. Almost more than the architect, the dogmatic preservation of monuments has to fear the public's judgment. After the defeat she had to suffer with her objection to the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche in Dresden, she wanted to set an example of 'correct' monument protection - and is now facing a disaster. The vain claim to convey the 'experience of history' has been given up. The appropriate comment can be found in Schinkel's note. Whenever the 'irregularity misused an arrangement', he stated in his unfinished architectural textbook, it did nothing but 'confuse the view of a desert and chaos'. "

The Gesellschaft Historisches Berlin also criticized the result of the restoration by David Chipperfield in a statement: “We are horrified to see the result of the construction work: a humiliated building, waste recycling as a construction program. This house was an epoch-making total work of art of the Prussian-Romantic classicism and the technical revolutions of that time. The icon of the most modern museum conception was at the same time the founding museum of the Museum Island itself, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV as client planned 'a free space for art and science', now a tomb for the evicted spirits, muses and ideals. "

“The patient, seriously injured in the war, was deliberately not cured: convalescence and reconstruction were forbidden - by the Berlin Monument Preservation and the allied institutions and experts. In fact, archeology, ancient science, has chosen the present as an adventure playground. She has set up a well-demolished replacement antiquity as a noble rubble backdrop for the really museum-like antique fragments. What is touted to us today as 'authentic', real, is actually designed 'authenticity', i.e. staged, fake. In this way, the patient's wounds were exposed and extensively conserved. Missing body parts were replaced by false prostheses 'modern'. So now he stands there in sackcloth, an emaciated, chronically ill, now a 'classic' long-term care case! Presumably because of many protests by the GHB, the color of this building corpse was pimped up a bit at the last minute, so that we can admire a discreetly made-up mummy of a museum building. "

One stands in front of a “cultural shambles of grotesque proportions”: the building is “falsified into its ruin as a monument”, a “fraud against all friends of architecture and history”. The "still existing 'authentic', mostly ruinous and damaged original architecture" was "manipulated and thus forged". Missing components were "supplemented by intentionally wrong spare parts" and "spirit, harmony and symmetry of the building were destroyed". The result of the restoration is a "falsification of the architecture of the house as a whole".

Exhibitions

  • The Neues Museum is currently showing the exhibitions
    • Snapshots - Nubia around 1900 (March 6, 2020 to August 30, 2020)
    • Berlin's largest excavation - Biesdorf research area (October 2, 2019 to January 4, 2021)
    • The Kerch Crown - Treasures from Europe's early days (October 19, 2017 to September 25, 2022)
    • Treasures from the Rhine. The barbarian treasure of Neupotz (December 20, 2016 until further notice)
    • Back! Stone age. Bronze age. Iron Age (June 29, 2014 until further notice)
    • Ancient Egypt (October 17, 2009 until further notice)
    • Prehistory and Early History (October 17, 2009 until further notice)
  • As a contribution to the Year of Germany in Russia and the Year of Russia in Germany, exhibits from 1000 years of art, history and culture by Russians and Germans were shown on the 3rd level from October 6, 2012 to January 13, 2013. The exhibition showed the deep and varied connections between the two countries in history.
  • On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the bust of Nefertiti, the exhibition In the Light of Amarna took place from December 7, 2012 to April 13, 2013 . 100 years of the discovery of Nefertiti took place in the Amarna period .
  • China and Egypt - Weighing of Humanity in collaboration with the Shanghai Museum , Shanghai , People's Republic of China . Catalog.

Awards

history

The planning

The Egyptian court. From: Friedrich August Stüler: The New Museum in Berlin . Riedel, 1862. The columns were removed in 1987 for restoration.
East facade of the Neues Museum with connecting gallery to the Altes Museum and the colonnades, from Friedrich August Stüler, Das Neues Museum in Berlin , Riedel 1862

The second museum on Museum Island was required as an extension for the collections that could not be accommodated in the Altes Museum . These were the collection of plaster casts, the Egyptian Museum, the Prehistory and Protohistory Collection (Museum of Patriotic Antiquities) , the Ethnographic Collection and the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings. It is therefore the “original cell” of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History , the Egyptian Museum , the Ethnological Museum and the Kupferstichkabinett . In its conception as a universal museum for a complete collection and in the development of its collection through expansions and the move out of individual collections such as the ethnographic collection to its own museums, it documents in its history exemplarily the move from universal to special museum as a general development in history of museums during the 19th century.

The Neues Museum is also one of the most important museum buildings of the 19th century as part of the overall complex of the Museum Island and as a single building from late classicism . It is also one of the most important monuments in the history of construction and technology. With its industrialized construction method and its diverse iron constructions, it is the first monumental building in Prussia with the consistent application of new building techniques made possible by industrialization . As a further innovation, a steam engine was used for the first time in Berlin during the construction work , which among other things made it easier to drive the numerous piles into the subsoil. The soft, sandy and spongy soil of the Spree or Berlin glacial valley requires the buildings to be deeply anchored in the central Berlin area. A piece of technical history was therefore written with the construction of the museum .

Construction work

New museum around 1850, view from the Friedrichsbrücke

Work on the construction of the New Museum began on June 19, 1841 under the direction of a commission appointed by Friedrich Wilhelm IV , which included the General Director of the Royal Museums Ignaz von Olfers and Friedrich August Stüler. Before that, the King had already commissioned Stüler with the planning with a cabinet order of March 8, 1841. The poor subsoil quickly became noticeable when the workers came across infusoric soil , deposits of diatomite , just below the surface . Therefore a pile grid was required under the entire building, the 2,344 wooden foundation piles of which were between 6.90 and 18.20 meters long. A steam engine with 5  HP was used to drive the piles , the output of which could be increased to 10 HP if required. It powered the pumps used to drain the construction site, the elevators, and the mortar mixing machines. The notepaper of the Berlin Architects' Association reported on the construction site and the new technical devices.

On April 6, 1843, the foundation stone was ceremoniously laid on the foundations that had already been laid down to the basement floor. The walls had been bricked up to the roof since the end of the same year, so that in 1844 the construction workers could move the cornices and complete the roofs. In 1845 the iron structures were drawn in, the vaults of the ceilings were bricked up and the connecting gallery to the Altes Museum was completed. An auxiliary railway transported the building materials from the Kupfergraben to the steam-powered elevator. The transport on the individual floors of the museum also took place on rails. In 1846, the exterior construction, apart from the sculptures in the gable fields, was completed and the workers began plastering the interior, setting the steps and laying the floors.

Interior work

This construction work had progressed so far in 1847 that the complex interior work could begin. The March Revolution of 1848 led to delays in the construction work, but it was never completely interrupted. As soon as the respective rooms were completed, the establishment of the collections began, which were opened one after the other from 1850 to 1859. Work on parts of the interior fittings, especially on the wall frescoes in the stairwell, continued until 1866.

The following report about the Neues Museum is given in the Berlin address book of 1875:

“The New Museum, which is connected to the Old Museum by an archway and a hall above it , is based on the original design of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And the plan of the Geh. Oberbaurath Stüler and built under his leadership 1843–1855. "

From the opening to the Second World War

At the opening, the Egyptian, Patriotic and Ethnographic collections were on the ground floor. The first floor housed the collections of plaster casts of sculptures from Greek and Roman antiquity, Byzantine art, Romanesque , Gothic , Renaissance and Classicism . The second floor was shared by the Kupferstichkabinett and the so-called "Kunstkammer", a collection of architectural models, furniture, clay and glass vessels, church objects and smaller works of art from the Middle Ages and modern times . The ethnological museum, founded in 1873, moved into its own building on Königgrätzer Strasse, today's Stresemannstrasse, which was destroyed in the Second World War . Linked to this was the move out of the ethnographic collection, the collection of patriotic antiquities and parts of the art chamber. The newly founded arts and crafts museum took over the remaining almost 7,000 objects from the Kunstkammer in 1875 and also moved into its own building in 1881, today's Martin-Gropius-Bau . The rooms on the ground floor that had become vacant were occupied by the Egyptian Collection, while the rooms on the second floor were taken over by the Kupferstichkabinett.

War damage in the Egyptian court, 1949

Between 1883 and 1887, the Neues Museum was raised by an additional mezzanine floor that was not visible from the outside . The collection of plaster casts, the focus of the collections at the time of construction, grew in the course of the 19th century into one of the most extensive and comprehensive cast collections. Due to a changed appreciation, however, with the exception of the colossal statues, it was handed over to the Berlin University between 1916 and 1920 , where it was largely destroyed in the Second World War. The vase collection of the Antikenmuseum and the papyrus collection of the Egyptian Museum have been repositioned in the halls on the first floor .

Conversions on the ground floor between 1919 and 1923 led to major interventions in the building fabric for the first time. In the Greek courtyard, the apse was demolished, the courtyard was covered with a glass roof, a new floor was drawn in at the normal level of the ground floor, creating several halls and cabinets to accommodate the Amarna collection. In the adjoining rooms on the ground floor, too, suspended ceilings and panels concealed the original decoration, creating modern, neutral exhibition spaces. In 1929 the transition to the Pergamon Museum was built.

In 1939 the collections were closed, and a large number of the artifacts were relocated and saved. Shortly afterwards, the destruction began in the Second World War. During bombings on 22./23. November 1943 burned down the central staircase with the wall frescoes on the history of mankind. In February 1945 bombs destroyed the northwest wing and the transition to the Altes Museum and damaged the southwest wing and the southeast risalit . In the battle for Berlin between the remaining Wehrmacht and SS units and the Soviet armed forces at the end of April 1945, there was further destruction.

post war period

Ruins of the Neues Museum, 1984
View of the south dome hall

In the post-war period, the Neues Museum was rather neglected. Other museums on Museum Island used the less damaged rooms as a magazine. It was not until 1986 that work on the reconstruction began, which initially involved further (avoidable and unavoidable) demolitions and thus the loss of historical building fabric. For example, the last remains of the Egyptian court were removed and the connecting gallery to the Altes Museum was completely removed. Numerous components and fragments were removed and stored for the planned reconstruction. When the building was secured in 1986, plans began to rebuild the New Museum. The numerous components removed - columns, capitals, cornices, floors, murals - were to serve as templates for the planned extensive reconstruction of the building. The grand staircase hall with Kaulbach cycle of human history should on the basis of information held in the National Gallery cartons are restored to the original.

In September 1989 the foundation stone was laid for the faithful reconstruction. The fall of 1989/1990 made the plans from GDR times obsolete. The project was ended after reunification.

Architecture and conception of the museum (19th century)

Exterior

overview

Plan New Museum with Numbers.png
Ground floor plan:

1  Greek Hof 2  Egyptian Hof 3  main vestibule 4  Vaterländischer hall 5  Südvestibül 6  flat Kuppelsaal 7  Ethnographic hall 8  hall behind the stairs 9  Historical hall 10  hypostyle 11  graves hall 12  Mythologischer room

Floor plan upper floor:

13  Large staircase 14  Bacchus room 15  Roman hall 16  Südkuppelsaal 17  transition to old museum 18  Mittelalterlicher room 19  Bernward room 20  Contemporary room 21  Greek room 22  Laokoon cabinet 23  Apollosaal 24  Nordkuppelsaal 25  Niobidensaal

The Neues Museum is an almost rectangular structure 105 meters long and 40 meters wide, oriented from south to north parallel to the Kupfergraben and perpendicular to the Altes Museum, with which it is 6.90 meters wide and 24.50 meters destroyed in the Second World War long connecting gallery with three round arches was connected via Bodestrasse. The highest part of the building is the 31 meter high central building with a staircase. Colonnades with Doric columns link it to the National Gallery , which was built later but was already planned in Stüler's planning .

The three-storey building wings are grouped around two inner courtyards, the Greek and Egyptian courtyards. Originally only the northern Egyptian courtyard was covered with glass, the southern Greek courtyard was only provided with a glass roof during renovations between 1919 and 1923. The central staircase hall is designed as a central projectile with flat gables and only slightly protrudes over the side wings. Its temple fronts represent the building's intellectual claim as a museum. The eastern main front facing the Alte Nationalgalerie with the entrance is framed by two windowless corner buildings, the shape of which corresponds to the shape of the domes on the colonnades and which counterbalance the central projection.

Behind the simple, rather conventional facade in the classicistic style, there are diverse iron structures that were extremely innovative in the 1840s. Despite the difficult subsoil, they enabled one storey more than Schinkel's Altes Museum and an extraordinary variety of ceiling shapes at roughly the same height. This iron skeleton is hidden inside behind a rich architectural backdrop with actual "stagings" in the Egyptian, Greek or Roman style. The significance of the Neues Museum lies less in the exterior architecture than in the rich interior architecture and its iron constructions, which bear witness to the changes and new possibilities in architecture associated with industrialization.

Facades

Details south elevation, from Friedrich August Stüler, Das Neues Museum in Berlin , Riedel 1862
Cast zinc relief Die Kunst instructs industry and applied arts in the west gable by August Kiß (Illustration: May 2005)

With regard to the connection with the Altes Museum as well as the planned cultural forum, Stüler designed the exterior of the Neues Museum in a very reserved and simple manner. In the explanations of his publications of 24 lithographs for the Neues Museum in 1862 he wrote:

“Due to its location and the connection with the larger building complex, the new museum lacks the motifs for a similarly grand and characterizing arrangement, as shown in the pillared hall of the older museum: therefore, the definition of the building could only be determined in the detailed forms and the arrangement of sculptures are indicated in more detail. "

The sparse, sculptural decoration is essentially limited to the central projection on the facade facing the Kupfergraben and against the National Gallery, the window crosses and the south and north projections.

The New Museum is a plastered brick building, the facades of which are structured by a scratched ashlar. The execution in different colored plaster was an unusual type of design at the time and was supposed to reinforce the illusion of a natural stone facade. The eastern main front is symmetrically structured by a gable-crowned central projectile and two dome-crowned, windowless corner projections. The five window axes in the walls between the risalits show windows of different sizes and shapes on each floor, depending on the height of the room and the importance of the interior spaces behind. The cornices running at the same height connect the first and second floors with the Altes Museum and reinforce the calm character of the facade.

The temple front of the central risalit shows the purpose of the building as a museum and names in the gilded inscription MUSEUM A PATRE BEATISSIMO CONDITUM AMPLIAVIT FILIUS MDCCCLV - the son enlarged the museum founded by the noble father in 1855 - all essential elements: MUSEUM - the purpose of the Building as a museum, AMPLIAVIT - the extension (of the old museum) and MDCCCLV - the official opening year 1855. The builder Friedrich Wilhelm IV. As well as his father Friedrich Wilhelm III. are not named (in contrast to the second dedication inscription in hieroglyphics in the Egyptian court). The stucco relief Die Geschichte, executed in 1854 by the sculptor Friedrich Drake , teaches architecture, sculpture, painting and graphics and illustrates the educational nature of the museum. The gable is crowned by a Borussia by Gustav Blaeser and probably identifies the building as a museum of the State of Prussia. The corner acroteries , two bronze griffins, are the work of the Berlin sculptor Friedrich Wilhelm Wolff . As a companion of Apollo , they refer to him in his role as god of the arts. The monumental, three-axis group of windows dominates the central projecting through its framing with columns and pilasters in Doric on the first and Corinthian order on the second floor. The main entrance is located in the central axis on the ground floor, flanked by two windows.

The two corner projections are decorated with spherical niche heads and allegories of the arts and sciences, which are represented by the museum's collections. They were executed in sandstone by the sculptors August Wredow , Carl Heinrich Gramzow , Wilhelm Stürmer , Karl Heinrich Möller and Heinrich Berges . The marbled fields between the figures, clearly visible in the adjacent drawing of the south elevation, set a colored accent on the outer facade. The stone window crosses of the windows on the first floor in the walls between the risalits show children's figures made of cast zinc as allegories of the objects in the collections.

The design of the west facade against the Kupfergraben as the second face is based on the east facade. Instead of the two corner projections, there are three further window axes and instead of the domes, two cast zinc figures emphasize the corners. The design of the central protrusion with the monumental windows is the same as on the front, the main entrance on the ground floor corresponds to an additional window. Under the unknown gable figure, the allegory of art instructs industry and applied arts, a zinc cast relief by the sculptor August Kiß from 1862. The building inscription ARTEM NON ODIT NISI IGNARUS - Only the ignorant despises art - again in gilded copper letters was chosen by Friedrich Wilhelm IV himself. The somewhat strange saying, which also calls for the acquisition of knowledge, gives room for speculation in its negation . Is it just a quote, an expression of a certain resignation or a hidden allusion to the blessed father of the inscription on the main facade?

Interior

Design guidelines

Wall design using the example of the Roman Hall, from bottom to top: base zone - calm, monochrome middle zone as a background for the sculptures - upper zone with wall paintings

The sparse outer jewelry contrasts with the extraordinarily rich and significant interior. Stüler describes the guidelines for the decorative design with "... it seemed appropriate to keep the rooms in the greatest possible harmony with the objects to be set up". The purpose of museums is “to provide, in addition to the enjoyment of beautiful works of art, as clear and extensive an overview as possible of the art exercises of different peoples and times” and since “[...] the arts are never separate, but always correct in connection with the sister arts are to be appreciated, so the architect believed he had an obligation to complement the collections as much as possible in the maintenance and decoration of the locations, especially since architecture was the bearer of sculpture and painting in all good art epochs. ”A competition of decoration and the exhibits should be avoided, however, E. The sculpture halls are only adorned with paintings that deal with objects other than the sculptures, and the latter is arranged with a calm, isolating background ”. Following these principles, copies of architectural details, murals and rich ornamental painting with references to the respective collections created an ambience suitable for the exhibits . The contemporary publication Berlin and its Art Treasures describes the Neues Museum as a labyrinth of symbolism and a stone compendium of cultural and art history because of its rich symbolism and the most diverse relationships and connections .

The walls in the collection rooms were divided into three parts, on the painted plinth at the height of the pedestals and showcases was a central wall area in strong colors that contrasted the exhibits. In most of the exhibition rooms a Pompeian red, but also green and purple. The upper wall zone was decorated with murals, the size of which was determined by architectural dividing elements. They showed mythological themes such as the Nordic gods in the Patriotic Hall, the Egyptian gods in the Mythological Hall or heroes of ancient legends in the Niobid Hall. In the Egyptian court, in the Greek and in the Roman hall, landscape paintings and reconstructions of historical architecture related to the collections. Another type was the representation of historical events such as in the south dome hall. A large number of decorative painters were commissioned with the artistic design of the ceilings and walls, including one of Stüler's closest collaborators (Minkels, p. 67, note 343), Georg Sievers , son-in-law of the well-known Berlin court carpenter Karl Wanschaff .

Critique of the design

In the compendium on the Mark Brandenburg and Berlin from 1881, Ernst Friedel emphasized in three lines the size , cleanliness , diverse interior fittings , taste and decoration talent of Stuler , in order to introduce his following detailed criticism as follows: “But that is the merit This building is summarized, while it also challenges multiple exhibitions. ”In addition to minor points such as criticism of the plastered building and, from his point of view, sometimes unsuccessful compositions of the colossal pictures , Friedel places the lack of consideration of the expansions that will soon be necessary at the center of his criticism.

The close connection between the exhibits and the exhibition rooms actually turned out to be a hindrance when moving out or moving individual collections. This was the case for the first time in the 1870s when the Kunstkammer and the ethnographic collection moved out as a result of the opening of the Ethnographic Museum. This was also the main point of criticism of the architects, as expressed, for example, in the Handbuch der Architektur in 1893: “Stüler tried to adapt the architectural design of the rooms to their purpose. However, the design of these has here and there turned out to be an obstacle to the shifting of the individual collections, which became necessary as a result of their increase. "

The criticism of the scientists was directed against the romanticizing and exoticizing interior, as well as against representations that were now scientifically outdated. Nonetheless, the interiors were treated very carefully, even when they were redesigned, with the exception of the major renovations to present the Amarna finds in the 1920s. The Irish writer Samuel Beckett explicitly excluded the Armanahof in his criticism of the haywire in the museum. Beckett noted in a diary entry on January 7, 1937: "Higgledypiggledy presentation except in Amarnahof".

Iron construction and lightweight construction - the arrival of industrialization in architecture

Section through the north wing - iron constructions as visible bowstring supports on the first and second floors, walled-in bowstring supports in the ceiling of the Mythological Hall in the northeast wing (right), glass roof and suspended glass ceiling over the Egyptian courtyard
Construction of the vaults and various cladding of the bowstring bearers in the north wing
Section through the south wing with the Greek court - iron constructions in the art chamber halls on the third floor as a dematerialized variant of the arches on the lower floors

There are only 17 years between the start of construction of Schinkel's Altes Museum and the start of construction of the New Museum. While Schinkel uses the conventional solid and wooden construction method and his building can therefore still be technologically assigned to the 18th century, Stüler uses new technologies for the Neues Museum with iron constructions, light bricks and vaults made of potted bricks, which were made possible by industrialization in the further course of the 19th century were used more intensively. At this level, the terms Old Museum - New Museum acquire a further meaning as an expression of old paths and new paths.

The construction

Inside, Stüler's museum is criss-crossed by an actual iron skeleton, a varied and sophisticated system of iron supports, girders and beams. The adjacent section through the northeast wing shows some examples. Visible bowstring carriers clad with sheet brass and cast zinc support the flat vaulted ceilings in the Niobid Hall, the Greek Hall and the halls of the Kupferstichkabinett. In addition to the various types of cladding, the figure below shows the standardized core shape of the bowstring carriers, which is the same in all rooms. These consist of a two-piece cast iron arch and a pair of wrought iron tendons carefully forged together from seven bundled round iron bars "made from the best iron of Staffordshire" into a single round bar and at 2 13  inches for the lighter load on the third floor and up 3 inches were rolled out for the second floor. Large tensioning screws on the support of the bowstring support allow fine adjustment of the tension of the tendons. This clever combination of easily malleable cast iron with high tensile wrought iron was a technical innovation. Cast iron beams were inserted into the cast-on flanges , spanning the length of the halls and lined with light potted bricks from Ernst March's pottery factory . In the mythological hall on the ground floor, the same bowstring supports are hidden behind a plastered wall, which simulate a massive construction - in the words of Stülers "... [which] are given the appearance of stone beams through brickwork and plastering". All iron components were supplied by August Borsig's factory on Chausseestrasse . The factories of Simeon Pierre Devaranne and Moritz Geiß supplied the zinc cast parts and probably also the brass cladding.

An iron structure destroyed in the Second World War was the double glass roof over the Egyptian courtyard, the structure of which, however, remained hidden from visitors by a suspended frosted glass ceiling. Without supports, it covered an area of ​​approximately 380 m². The glass-covered inner courtyard, the first of its kind in Berlin, was later added to other museum buildings such as the former arts and crafts museum by Martin Gropius , but can also be found in the department store architecture. The slender iron columns, arches and beams in the rooms of the Kunstkammer on the third floor of the south wing are another type of iron structure in the Neues Museum. They can almost be seen as a dematerialized variant of the arches of the basement. Like the bowstring bearers in the north wing, decorations made of sheet brass and cast zinc clad the iron core. Fascinating in its shape is the iron construction, which was also destroyed and covered with wire mesh, which is hidden behind the “ Gothic ” vault of the star room. Static reasons for the choice of the solution were decisive for Stüler here, as the thin walls of the third floor would not have withstood the pressure of a real Gothic vault. In the vestibule, the coffering of the ceiling rests on iron beams, "to which decorated bronze strips are attached below in order to allow the metal construction to appear in the decoration".

Stüler's handling of iron structures is full of facets. In part, they are deliberately not shown as such, walled in and covered up, as in the Mythological Hall, in the Star Room or as in the glass roof of the Egyptian Court. Some of them - although hidden - are made visible in the decoration as in the vestibule and in some cases they are disguised as in the halls of the north wing or in the art chamber. The shapes of the decorations clearly show the function of the iron core, but here too, not the iron construction , but an image of the iron construction , often in the formal language of antiquity, such as the tendons disguised as "ropes" and statically senseless consoles of the bowstring carriers in the rooms of the North wing. The destruction of the Second World War exposed parts of the originally hidden iron structures in some rooms and made them visible, thus opening a window to the technically innovative side of the building.

Forced iron construction

In addition to advantages such as the reduction in construction time and costs through industrial production or the increased fire safety through the elimination of wooden ceilings, there were factors that forced Stüler to use iron structures instead of conventional solid construction. These were mainly the poor building ground, which required the museum to weigh as little as possible and thus thin and light walls and ceilings with little or no horizontal thrust. A further complication was the requirement to accommodate one more storey than in the Altes Museum at roughly the same height. The architect chose the materials very deliberately, as can be seen in the roof of the large staircase, which was made of wood and not iron. His considerations:

“In the case of a building which, according to its purpose, has to make demands on fire safety, it can be noticed that the roof structure is made of wood. The reasons for this were as follows: Iron roofs, in which the sheet metal of the roof covering is laid on without the use of wooden cladding, ensure a ceiling that is too thin and too exposed to temperature changes. Especially in heated buildings, the lower surfaces of the metal fog up so extremely strongly in winter that the dropping of drops becomes very annoying and harmful. This diminishes as wood is used for the outer ceiling. However, since the wood consumption required for the roof scaffolding is only small and the vault construction is so strong that it cannot be damaged when the roof burns down, doubts about the use of the wood, which provides advantages in other respects, rose. "

In relation to iron construction, Stüler occupies a middle position between the antipodes Gottfried Semper , who rejected the construction with iron because of the associated loss of mass, and the iron enthusiast Henri Labrouste , who was in the Sainte-Geneviève library, which was built around the same time and later in 1858 / 1868 shows the iron constructions uncovered in the reading rooms in the old building of the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris .

The factors building material, industrial production, design and construction process influenced each other. Serial industrial production required standardization of the support members to be produced if they were to be produced quickly and inexpensively. The standardized components require rooms of the same dimensions in the design, but they should not appear monotonous. Production moved from the construction site to the factory, which enabled the construction process to be accelerated, but also placed higher demands on transport and logistics . Borsig sometimes encountered delivery problems due to the rapid construction process, as can be seen from the correspondence contained in the construction files. Before series production, a prototype was tested by "using a very powerful hydraulic press, one of the anchors with a force of 64,000 pounds to the square inch of its cross-section was torn apart". The quality assurance was also new, as all tie rods supplied by August Borsig were tested before they left the factory. There is already an example of the use of industrial production in a building in Berlin in the 1840s, which is usually only associated with Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace for the 1851 London World's Fair .

Tour of the museum

The following sections describe the rooms of the Neues Museum "at the time it opened in 1855" in the form of a tour. Most of the quotes and pictures come from Stüler's Das neue Museum in Berlin: 24 panels. and from Berlin and its art treasures . Some halls and facilities have since been changed or were damaged or destroyed in the Second World War. Total losses are the northwest wing with the Historical Hall, the Greek Hall, the Blue Hall, the Apollo Hall and the Green Hall together with the Egyptian Court and the south dome hall with the transition to the Altes Museum. The interior of the stairwell, especially the frescoes on the history of mankind, is also a total loss. The state of preservation of the other rooms varies from largely preserved rooms such as the Niobidensaal to rooms that have been reduced to their shell condition such as the Modern Hall.

Vestibule and staircase

Staircase in the Neues Museum around 1850

The visitors entered the main vestibule through the main entrance in the middle of the east facade, the coffered ceiling of which was supported by four Doric columns made of Pavonazetto marble from Carrara. The light marble with the strong, dark purple veins stood out well from the red-brown base and the polished, yellowish walls made of marble imitation marble . The ceiling construction was a construction of iron beams, "to which decorated bronze strips are attached underneath in order to allow the metal construction to appear in the decoration" - Stüler apparently wanted to show this iron construction at least indirectly. On the left a door made of polished rosewood led to the collection of Nordic antiquities, on the right to the Egyptian collection.

The Babelthurm Merz after Wilhelm von Kaulbach.jpg
Homer and the Greeks Raab after Wilhelm von Kaulbach.jpg
The destruction of Jerusalem by Gustav Eiler after Wilhelm von Kaulbach.jpg
The Raab Hunnenschlacht according to Wilhelm von Kaulbach.jpg
The crusaders Schultheiss after Wilhelm von Kaulbach.jpg
Gustav Eiler's Reformation based on Wilhelm von Kaulbach.jpg
Section of the staircase, east wall with Korenhalle and door frame of the Erechtheion ; from: Friedrich August Stüler: The New Museum in Berlin . Riedel, 1862
Longitudinal section of the stairwell, south wall with wall structure system; from: Friedrich August Stüler: The New Museum in Berlin . Riedel, 1862

A wide, single-flight staircase made of gray Silesian Groß Kunzendorfer marble with the same design of the side walls as in the vestibule led to the first floor through the large staircase hall , which was already visible when entering the main vestibule. With a length of 38 meters, a width of 15.70 meters and a height of 20.20 meters, it reached through the entire depth of the building and through the two floors, making it the largest room. The size, the extensive wall surfaces on the long walls and the good lighting through the windows on the two narrow sides determined him to set up large sculptures and reliefs. In the design of the staircase, Stüler based himself on a well-known design by his teacher Karl Friedrich Schinkel for a royal palace on the Acropolis for King Otto I from 1834: “The ceiling was made according to Schinkel's beautiful design for the great hall of the royal palace on the Acropolis in Athens executed, in that the architect could not fail to donate a souvenir to his most adored master, whose most beautiful designs unfortunately did not come into being. "

On the ledge stood two monumental 5.50 meter high casts of the horse tamers Castor and Pollux from the Piazza di Monte Cavallo in front of the Quirinal Palace in Rome . Two flights of stairs, interrupted by intermediate landings, led from this landing on the two long walls to the second floor. The two flights of stairs joined after a quarter podium in front of the exit under a copy of the Korenhalle of the Erechtheion in Athens. The door frame below the Korenhalle was also an architectural quote from the Erechtheion. Stüler commissioned the sculptor Gustav Blaeser, who also worked on the facade, with the sculptural design of the banister. On the opposite transverse wall, four Ionic columns supported a transverse gallery, which connected the opposite doors on the second floor.

The first and second floors were separated by a wall arch, which formed the base for the wall paintings on the upper floor. In Stüler's original design, the walls were simply structured by Corinthian pilasters . Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Personally designed the walls of the second floor for large-scale fresco paintings with the intention of “... also giving modern monumental art a field of development, which makes it on par with ancient art, and encouraged the artist to enjoy it took over the order to depict the main epochs of world history in 6 large pictures. ”The artist was the then well-known Munich court painter Wilhelm von Kaulbach , who was recruited from Munich especially for the frescoes. Friedrich Wilhelm IV had a lively influence on the design of the murals, advising the General Director of the Royal Museums, Ignaz von Olfers, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, but also Alexander von Humboldt and other great intellectuals of the time. In analogy to the six days of creation, six turning points in world history should be represented. The cycle is influenced by the Hegelian philosophy of history of the higher development of man, the upward development through permanent selection, the emancipation from external religious powers. A tough struggle arose between the king and the artist over the subjects to be represented, which sometimes lasted years. Kaulbach's cycle with the frescoes The Babylonian Tower , Homer and the Greeks or the Bloom of Greece , The Destruction of Jerusalem , The Battle of the Huns , The Crusaders in front of Jerusalem and The Age of the Reformation ran through the entire upper floor of the monumental staircase and was therefore around 75 meters long. The width of the individual frescoes was about 7.5 meters, the height 6.70 meters. The pictures were executed by Kaulbach from 1847 to 1866 in stereochromy . With this technique, the pictures can be painted as if with oil and are only subsequently firmly attached to the masonry with water glass , creating a fresco effect. The paintings in the Neues Museum were the first large-scale application of the technology that had just been invented. During the construction, precautions were taken for the wall surfaces to dry out quickly and thus for the frescoes to be attached quickly by creating air ducts in the masonry by raising every second layer of brick inside the wall and through irregular openings.

To separate the main pictures, Stüler had the pictures painted over the doors and between the frescoes on a gold background. The pictures above the doors showed an allegory of the legend, with a rune stick in the ground, digging for the past, while the ravens Hugin and Munin circled their heads, Klio as the muse of history, writing the history of the peoples on a board, the allegory of art and the allegory of science. The intermediate images on a gold background between the frescoes depicted the great legislators as seated figures, over which floating figures characterized the countries in which they worked. The pairs are Solon with that of Cupid hovering around Venus as the embodiment of Greece, Moses with the tablets of the law, his foot on the shattered golden calf sitting down, and Isis as the embodiment of Egypt, Charlemagne and the embodiment of Italy and Frederick II. And Germania as the embodiment of Germany . The rest of the wall structure was painted in a restrained green-gray grisaille , the top was formed by a frieze of putti and children with parodies of Egyptian, Greek and Roman historical events. The narrow sides to the left and right of the windows were decorated with allegories of architecture, sculpture, painting and graphic art. The color of the walls not covered by paintings was a deep Pompeian red with a mild sheen.

The gently sloping coffered ceiling was painted with arabesque paintings on a deep red background and was supported by an open purlin roof with six mighty girders . The actual roof was not visible from the inside and was about 2.50 meters higher. The binders were decorated with gilded panthers , fallow deer , hippogryphs , lions , bulls and griffins, as well as ornaments made of cast zinc that Stüler had taken directly from Schinkel's design for the royal palace.

ground floor

The Egyptian Collection, the Patriotic Antiquities Collection and the Ethnographic Collection were housed on the ground floor. The architectural character was "adapted as much as possible to the simple schemes of the objects to be set up". Historically older constructions such as beams resting on wall supports or pillars, Egyptian and Doric columns support the ceilings, while Ionic columns were predominantly used on the first floor and Corinthian columns on the upper floor. One of the materials corresponded to this hierarchy of column shapes: the columns on the ground floor were carved from sandstone and covered with stucco , the columns on the elegant first floor were made of Italian, French and Bohemian marble and the columns on the second floor were made of cast iron clad with gilded zinc casting. Precious and resilient natural stone covered the floor of the vestibule, in most of the exhibition rooms the floor was made of colored terrazzo .

The Egyptian Department (Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection)
The Temple of Hathor at Dendera - French after Graeb.jpg
The Temple at Karnak - Payne after Pape.jpg
The Memnon statues at Thebes - French after Schirmer.jpg
The forecourt of the Temple of Edfu - Heawood after Biermann.jpg
Philae Island - Payne after Biermann.jpg
The rock temple of Abu Simbel - Payne after Schmidt.jpg
The pyramids of Meroe French after Schmidt.jpg
The temple at Gerf Hussein - Gray after Schirmer.jpg
View from the burial hall into the mythological hall around 1850
Ceiling painting in the Mythological Hall : Zodiac from Dendera with damage from the renovation around 1920

The Egyptian department comprised five rooms on the ground floor of the entire north wing around the Egyptian courtyard. Richard Lepsius , the leading Egyptologist of his time, was brought in to design the Egyptian court and the halls of the Egyptian department . Between 1842 and 1845, Lepsius had led the expedition to Egypt sent by Friedrich Wilhelm IV , whose rich collection was to be housed and exhibited in the newly created rooms. Stüler's claim was high: "Even during the collection of the monuments brought back by the Egyptian expedition, the main focus was on creating a historical museum, which, in contrast to the previous collections of antiquities, which were accidentally and depending on the occasion, should show all essential pages and art epochs of Egyptian antiquity as evenly as possible through characteristic samples. The same purpose prevailed in the furnishing and decoration of the rooms intended for installation. ”The executed paintings and decorations documented the then current state of Egyptology and had nothing in common with the romantic Egyptian fashion in the aftermath of Napoleon's Egypt expedition .

A small vestibule led from the main vestibule to the heart of the Egyptian department, the Egyptian courtyard covered by a double glass roof . In its architecture it was a copy of the pillared courtyard of the Ramesseum in Theben-West, reduced to a third . The peristyle of 16 columns with lotus capitals, which supported a gallery, enclosed the rectangular room. On the cornice above the pillars, the following dedication inscription in hieroglyphics was made for the knowledgeable :

"The royal Sonnenaar, the avenger of Prussia, the king, the son of the sun, Friedrich Wilhelm IV., Philopator [Greek for" the father-loving "], Euergetes [Greek for" benefactor "], Eucharist [Greek for" the well-pleased "] Loved by Thoth and Safech , the victorious lord of the Rhine and the Vistula, who was chosen by Germania, had colossi, statues, pictures and images, stones, pillars and coffins erected in this building, and many other good things is brought about from Egypt and the Mohrenland. "

The back walls of the peristyle were decorated with views of landscapes and reconstructed monuments of Egypt. Looking clockwise from the entrance of the courtyard, these were The Pyramids of Memphis or Gizeh , Temple of Hathor and the Typhonium at Dendera by Carl Graeb , The Ramesseum in Thebes , The Memnon statues at Thebes by Wilhelm Schirmer , Hypostyle or Hall of Columns at Karnak , The Temple at Karnak by Eduard Pape , Der Tempel zu Gerf Hussein by Wilhelm Schirmer, The rock tombs by Beni Hasan by Carl Graeb, The quarries of Silfilis by Eduard Biermann , The obelisks in the small temple courtyard at Karnak by Eduard Biermann, Forecourt of the temple at Edfu by Eduard Biermann, The island of Philae by Eduard Biermann, the rock temple of Abu Simbel by Max Schmidt , the mountain Barkal by Max Schmidt and the pyramids of Meroe by Max Schmidt.

The gallery and its back walls were used to display casts from Egypt, casts of Assyrian works of art from Khorsabad and Nimrud and Persian works of art from Persepolis and Pasargadae . The gallery was accessible via the large staircase on the first floor through a door under the stairs that led to the second floor.

In the hypostyle adjoining the courtyard , eight columns painted with hieroglyphics supported the blue ceiling decorated with yellow stars. The door on the right led into the historical hall , the walls of which were adorned with a selection of the most remarkable historical representations in as faithful, colored copies of the Egyptian originals as possible . These included depictions from the private life of the pharaohs, battle and hunting scenes and religious ceremonies as copies of paintings from the temples of Medinet Habu and Karnak, from graves and from papyri. The cartouches of all the pharaohs formed a frieze over the wall paintings . Twelve columns supported the ceiling with a decoration of continuously repeating vultures as a copy of the ceiling paintings from the tomb of Psammetich . Embalmed animals, small and large statues of gods made of ore and stone, jewelry, clothing and objects of everyday life were shown in glass cases and open cupboards. The door on the left led into the burial hall , named after three integrated original burial chambers. In the pillar-less mythological hall that followed , the ceiling rested on the longitudinal walls, supported by eight wall pillars, walled-in iron beams and trusses. The lower half of the walls was covered by painted, yellowish wood paneling, above which a band of about the same width showed the main gods of Egyptian mythology as copies of Egyptian paintings. A narrower band, about a third as high, with depictions of the cult of the dead, for example with the judgment of the dead of Osiris, also ran in the uppermost wall zone over the girders with the walled-in iron trusses. The ceiling showed astronomical representations on a deep blue background in gold, for example the gods of the month or the zodiac from the temple of Dendera . Numerous mummies and sarcophagi were exhibited alongside grave goods in this last room of the Egyptian Department.

The Nordic Department
Giants fighting dragons, mermaids playing with beasts, 1852
The Norns under the World Ash Yggdrasil , 1852

From the main vestibule one got through the door with the heading Nordic Antiquities into the Patriotic Hall , sometimes referred to as the Hall of Nordic Antiquities . This collection of prehistoric and Bronze Age finds is the original cell of today's Museum of Prehistory and Early History. The ceiling rested with belt arches on six sandstone pillars whose Doric fluting and capitals were made of white marmorino. The finds were displayed in oak cabinets between the columns. The basic color of the walls was a purple gray. The paintings came from the Nordic legends of the Edda , executed by the painters Gustav Richter , Robert Müller and Gustav Heidenreich . On the long wall against the inside of the museum, on the left of the first painting, Odin , the king of the gods of light, appeared on his throne in the gods' castle Asgard with the two ravens Hugin and Munin and the earth mother Hertha on her chariot, in between the goddess of the night Nótt , circling the sky with her son Dag on horseback. The next fresco depicted Baldur and his death by the trick of Lokis . This was followed by a depiction of the spring god Freyr and his sister Freya and, as the last painting, Tyr , the god of battle, and the journey to Valhalla . On the long wall towards the outside, in the first picture, Thor was to be seen, setting out on his chariot pulled by two ibexes to fight the mountain trolls, offering him flowers and wreaths opposite elves in the moonlight and her queen Titania . The next fresco shows the battles of the giants against the dragons, opposite the water mermaids in cheerful play with the beasts. The third picture represented the three Norns , the first watering the root of the world ash Yggdrasil , the second spinning the thread of life and the third sitting by the stream of times, drawing the deeds of the past on a shield. The last painting depicted the evil god Loki and his daughter Hel , ruler of the underworld. On the wall against the entrance vestibule, three paintings depicted Valhalla, the Nordic sky, Gimil , the Au of the Blessed and the path to the underworld. Im The passage room to the south vestibule contained two further wall paintings by Ferdinand Konrad Bellermann , Arkona on Rügen with the barrows and the room chamber with a sacrificial ring .

The ethnographic department
Ceiling of the flat dome hall

In the subsequent three halls of the Ethnographic Department, the flat domed hall with the eponymous flat dome vaults clay pots and the niche-like statements, the adjoining room for smaller items and the Ethnographic Hall with the Doric columns were issued the ethnological exhibits. Due to the temporal and regional inhomogeneity, Stüler limited the multi-colored decoration to the ceilings in this room, the walls were monochrome in light wax colors. The article "The New Museum in Berlin" in the Zeitschrift für Bauwesen 1853 describes the installation at that time. The art of the peoples who were completely barbaric according to the understanding of the time , as offered by Africa and Oceania and the more significant objects such as those supplied by Polynesia and India , were exhibited in the flat-dome hall and in the hall for smaller objects. The things from China, Japan and Mexico , in which in part a very special diligence in handling the material, and in part the hint of a more ingenious conception appears , found their place in the main room of the collection, the ethnographic room and in the adjoining room the stairs .

The halls of the Nordic and Ethnographic Department encompassed the southern courtyard of the museum, called the Greek Court after the heads of the Greek gods Zeus , Hera and Athena on the outer wall of the stairwell. In the height between the second and third floors of the courtyard on three sides, the 1.50 meter high relief frieze The Destruction of Pompeii by Hermann Schievelbein was attached. At the height of the first floor, a 1.70 meter long protective roof surrounded the courtyard on three sides as weather protection, in order to enable the installation of early Christian and medieval architectural fragments. Artistic paving and the installation of an old well by Pankraz Labenwolf were intended to create the atmosphere of a medieval monastery courtyard in analogy to the Egyptian court. The courtyard was accessible by a double flight of stairs from the central staircase. An apse jutted into the courtyard on the northern narrow side.

First floor - the collection of plaster casts

The whole of the first floor was intended “for the installation of the most complete collection of gypsy casts after antiquity and the best works of the Middle Ages and subsequent times, so that an overview of the history of sculpture in its best products is given in it”, such as Stüler writes in his publication on the Neues Museum. On the one hand, the location on the upper floor enabled the connection to the sculpture gallery in the Altes Museum, which only contained originals made of marble and ore. On the other hand, the elevated position in the piano nobile above the works of art in the basement, which were more primitive according to what was understood at the time, illustrates the importance as the real center of all collections . For the presentation of the casts, Stüler designed a series of exhibition rooms with a wide variety of basic shapes and alternating side and top lighting. The colorful, decorative mosaic floors were laid with stoneware tiles from Ernst March's factory in an elaborate process, combined with colored plaster screed or natural stone.

Greek hall
The Greek Hall around 1850

The Greek Hall extended over the entire northwest wing of the first floor. Its ceiling, a painted velarium in light yellow, was supported by seven iron bowstring supports, clad by gilded figures made of cast zinc and brass. The walls were painted and polished in Pompeian red in the lower area, and at the top ten landscape paintings showed Stüler's reconstructions of Greek architecture in Greece, Sicily and Asia Minor ( Athens with the Acropolis by Carl Graeb , The Acropolis by Eduard Pape , The Zeus statue of Phidias in the Temple of Olympia by Eduard Pape, The monument of Lysicrates in Athens by Eduard Pape, The Temple of Zeus Panhellenios at Aegina by Wilhelm Schirmer , The Sacred Grove at Olympia by Carl Graeb, The Phigalia with the Temple of Apollo Epicurios by Wilhelm Schirmer, The Theater of Syracuse by Karl Eduard Biermann , Lycian tombs by Max Schmidt and Hain and altar of Zeus Lykaios in Arcadia by Max Schmidt). The landscape pictures with the intact, reconstructed architecture were in conscious contrast to the mostly mutilated statues and should "[...] float like a colored glory over the remains of the rubble [...] whose casts are housed in this hall". The highlights among the plaster casts of Greek sculpture were the gable of the temple in Aegina (original in the Glyptothek in Munich ) and the Parthenon frieze (original in the British Museum ). Stüler originally planned to erect the Parthenon frieze in the gallery of the Egyptian court. These wall surfaces were then used for the Egyptian and Assyrian sculptures. Therefore the Greek Hall had to be divided by low transverse walls. The well-known architecture theorist and art historian Karl Bötticher reconstructed the east gable of the Aegina temple “in the original colors”. Stüler refers here to the polychrome controversy at the time and is well informed and interested in current issues at the time. As in the rooms of the Egyptian Collection, this shows the change from romantic enthusiasm and transfiguration to scientific methodology.

Purple wall and ceiling with Pompeian paintings in the Laocoon Cabinet, 1874
Laocoon Cabinet and Apollo Hall

Through the Laocoon Cabinet, also designed with the help of Karl Bötticher, in the tone similar to ancient purple , where a cast of the famous Laocoon group was placed, one reaches the Apollo Hall. The rectangular hall received side and skylight through a bay-like porch on the north wall with two small niches to the left and right of the window, which, like the larger niches in the middle of the longitudinal walls, are used to display famous statues such as the Endymion of Stockholm , the Diane of Versailles or the Apollo from the Belvedere . The actual room with its barrel ceiling modeled on the baths in Pompeii was dominated by a cast of the Farnese bull . A door on the wall opposite the window led to the corridor of the Egyptian court via a few steps. The color concept with violet walls and predominantly white ceiling with light Pompeian paintings was similar to that of the Laocoon Cabinet.

Section through the north dome hall
North Dome Hall

The following octagonal north dome hall, over 12 meters high, took up the north-west corner of the building and was only illuminated by a skylight. Four round ones alternated with four angular niches. Two of them connected as doors with the Apollo Hall and the Niobid Hall. Statues were placed in the rest. The walls were made of green porphyry . In the semicircular fields above the square niches and doors, images of heroes showed the deeds of Greek heroes ( Hercules defeats the gold-crowned doe of Kerynea , Bellerophon on Pegasus kills the Chimera , Perseus frees Andromeda and Theseus kills the Minotaur ) based on designs by the painters Eduard Daege , August Ferdinand Hopfgarten , Eduard Steinbrück and Adolf Schmidt , executed by Eltester and Heinrich Bögel (approx. 1828–1856). 16 genii playing with the gods sacred animals and attributes of the gods were depicted in the cassettes of the dome, executed by Eduard Daege, August Ferdinand Hopfgarten, Eduard Steinbrück and Adolf Schmidt.

The north dome hall now houses the bust of Nefertiti .

Niobid Hall against the north dome hall
Niobid Hall

The visitors enter the adjoining Niobid Hall through a portal, framed by casts of two caryatids based on originals from the Villa Albani . Above the door is in gold lettering on a black background "IT CREATED EVERY ART PROMETHEUS mortals" - a quote from the Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus . The similarly designed portal on the opposite wall to the Bacchus Hall is headed “AMAZING THINGS ARE MANY AND HAS NOTHING MORE AMAZING THAN MAN” - a quote from the Antigone des Sophocles . Stüler designed the hall very similarly to the Greek hall - walls in Pompeian red, the ceiling in somewhat darker yellow decorative paintings with painted terracotta reliefs and ten bowstring supports decorated with gold-plated zinc castings. In the upper wall zones, 21 wall paintings in square, octagonal or round gold-plated frames told ancient legends ( Orpheus in the Underworld , executed by Wilhelm Peters based on a design by Bonaventura Genelli , Cadmus kills the dragon by Karl Becker , Hypsipyle finds Opheltes, who was killed by a snake / Archemoros by Karl Becker, Mercury lulls Argus one of Karl Becker, the expelled from Thebes blind Oedipus is survived by his daughter Antigone out from August Theodor Kaselowsky , Pelops and Hippodamia after winning the chariot race from August Theodor Kaselowsky, Tantalus and Sisyphus in Hades of August Theodor Kaselowsky, Jason and Medea with the Golden Fleece and the slain dragon by August Theodor Kaselowsky, Diana saves Iphigenia from the sacrifice of Adolf Henning , Achilles receives new armor from Thetis on the corpse of Patroclus by Adolf Henning, Rescue of Odysseus through the veil of Leukothea by Adolf Henning, Aeneas flees with Anc hises and Ascanius from the burning Troy of Adolf Henning, Daedalus made wings for Icarus to run from Wilhelm Peters, designed by Bonaventura Genelli, Prometheus to the rock performed by Wilhelm Peters, designed by Bonaventura Genelli, The plowing Romulus of Adolf Henning, The wrath of Ajax by Adolf Henning, Meleager hands Atalante the head of the Calydonian boar by August Theodor Kaselowsky, Peleus kidnaps Thetis by August Theodor Kaselowsky, Hyllos , son of Hercules , brings his mother the head of Eurystheus by Karl Becker, Kekrops prays the statue of Athena at Karl Becker, the education of Achilles by Chiron executed by Wilhelm Peters, designed by Bonaventura Genelli). The framing arabesques in grisaille were also executed by Wilhelm Peters. The hall got its name from the group of statues of Niobe set up here, and casts from the transition from Greek to Roman art were also exhibited here.

Bacchus Hall

The Bacchus Hall that followed was again in the middle section of the middle section of the museum under the exit of the stairs and the connecting passage between the halls on the third floor. The hall consisted of a higher part with a flat ceiling, in which the windows were located, and a lower part, where three barrel vaults on columns made of purple-brown Pyrenees marble supported the stairs. The vaults were painted in the Pompeian style with vine leaves entwined around a bronze grille. The walls in a dark, saturated violet gave the rather small room an intimate character, and housed utensils and utensils from antiquity as well as casts of ancient cabaret were presented.

Roman hall
Roman Hall: Imperial Palaces and Circus Maximus in Rome, 2001
Draft of the ceiling of the Roman Hall (different in design)

In the Roman Hall, so named after the casts of Roman sculptures exhibited here, the ceiling was not supported by an iron structure, as in the previous ones, but by three arches on columns made of brown Bohemian limestone with Ionic capitals, which divided the room into four sections at the same time. In the longitudinal wall facing the Greek courtyard, a niche was let into each section, which, together with the ledge created by the heating cladding, were used to set up smaller exhibits. The ceiling, divided with gold strips and with colorful coffered fields, showed three city coats of arms in the middle according to Greco-Roman city coins. The painter Eduard Pape painted the 17 prospectuses of Roman cities and landscapes with reconstructions of Roman architecture in the upper wall zone ( The Roman Forum , The Trajan Forum , The Roman Imperial Palaces with the Circus Maximus , The Villa Tiburtina of Trajan , The Baths of Caracalla , The Temple in Praeneste , The Forum in Pompeii , The Tiber Island in Rome , The Street of Tombs in Pompeii , Triumphal procession through the Arch of Constantine , The Porta Nigra in Trier , courtyard of the Casa delle fontana in Pompeii , Stibadium in the Tuscum of Pliny , tomb of the Plautier family near Tivoli , Interior of the Scipionen tomb near Rome , Columbarium of Livia Augusta in Rome and The Temple of Isis in Pompeii ). The dark green walls were decorated with strip-like gold lines, the fluting of the columns was provided with similar gold lines. The pillars of the portals, decorated with mosaics, carried a picture of Poseidon and his entourage in the architrave on the side facing the Bacchus Hall , executed by Eduard Pape and Carl Friedrich Seiffert .

South dome hall
The south dome hall seen from the Roman Hall, 1862
The connecting gallery to the Altes Museum, view towards the south dome hall, 1862

The south dome hall got its light from the skylight in the dome and from the connecting passage to the Altes Museum, to which a staircase with eleven steps led. Through this connection, the south dome hall also had the function of a vestibule for visitors from the Altes Museum, which was reflected in the elaborate design. The dome was filled with a red velarium decorated with gold stars , in the pendentives medallions bore the cardinal virtues with the allegories of the four capitals of Christian antiquity and the early Middle Ages, Rome , Jerusalem , Byzantium and Aachen , on a gold background, painted by Eduard Daege . The walls were kept in a simple, light brown. In the upper zones, large-format history paintings showed the transition from antiquity to the Christian Middle Ages. In the conche towards the Roman Hall, a portrait of Emperor Augustus embodied antiquity. In the arched area above the portal to the connecting passage to the Altes Museum, i.e. in the direction of the visitor's gaze, the recognition of Christianity by Konstantin von Hermann Stilke marked the turn from pagan antiquity to Christian late antiquity. In the ceiling picture in the top of the vault, religion was enthroned , awakening and invigorating sacred art , accompanied by two other paintings with supporters of the Christian faith and Christian art: Theodosius welcomed the Goth prince Athanaric in Constantinople and Theodoric received the ambassadors of various peoples at Ravenna, who pay homage to his greatness . Still on the topic of Byzantium / Late Antiquity, the large mural on the outside wall in between showed The inauguration of the Sophienkirche in Constantinople by Emperor Justinian in 549 by the painter Julius Schrader - again with a scientific claim in the depiction of Hagia Sofia, “for which the more recent photographs of this model used by the Greek churches ”. The cycle concluded on the opposite wall with the reconciliation of the Saxon Duke Wittekind with Charlemagne , executed by Gustav Graef based on the cardboard box by Wilhelm von Kaulbach, the painter of the frescoes in the great staircase. This last painting symbolized the beginning of the Christian German Empire, but probably satisfied in the eyes of contemporaries like the allegories of the Christian capitals the legitimation claims of the emerging German nation.

Medieval art room
Medieval hall ceiling

The medieval hall or hall for works of art from the Middle Ages was designed by Stüler in the form of a three-aisled basilica with an apse. Four dark marble pillars supported the ceiling, dividing it into nine flat domes. The painters Eduard Holbein , Schütz and Karl Stürmer executed the portraits of the Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire from Heinrich I to Maximilian I on a gold background in the center of the domes. In the pendentives , allegories of German cities were attached, representing medieval buildings that were associated with the reign of the respective emperor. “In each of the nine domes is the portrait of one of the German emperors, under whom the practice of the arts flourished, surrounded by the representations of those persons and the names of the cities which history and the monuments that have come down to us indicate as particularly active in this direction . “ Heinrich IV. Was surrounded, for example, by Worms , Speyer , Trier and Corvey . The apse with five niches, illuminated by a skylight, closed off the room from the Greek courtyard. In this quiet chapel after the roaring bacchanal of pagan polytheism , the casts of medieval works of art were placed, as well as in the adjoining Bernward room with the ceiling painting St. Bernward pours the Bernward column in the south-west corner of the museum.

Modern hall
The Modern Hall, 1862
Wall system facing the Greek courtyard with niches, wall paintings and heating system

The modern hall formed the end of the plaster collection and was dedicated to sculptures from the Renaissance up to the early 19th century. Six arches, each with two columns made of purple-brownish marble with Ionic capitals, supported the ceiling and divided the room into seven smaller compartments, additionally separated by partition walls between the columns. As in the Greek Hall, the number of exhibits required more hanging space, while at the same time allowing the works of art to be more strictly separated according to schools and epochs . On the inner wall facing the Greek courtyard, a niche with wall paintings was attached to each section. The main and partition walls were tinted yellowish-brown, the base area purple-gray. The paintings in the upper wall area were kept in stone-gray tones, the blue background of the figures to the left and right of the niches formed a color accent. Belts in arabesque paintings between the opposite columns divided the ceiling and in the apices of the central aisle seven octagonal wall paintings depicted the development of industry and the arts in allegories of agriculture, embossing, the fine arts, architecture, gold and iron forging as well of mechanical engineering. The openwork jackets of the water heating stoves and the adjoining 90 centimeter high wall tables that covered the heating tubes were used to display larger and smaller sculptures. On the south wall was a cast of the Paradise Gate of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence , a work by Lorenzo Ghiberti .

Second floor - Kupferstichkabinett and Kunstkammer

The third floor is shared by the Kupferstichkabinett and the Kunstkammer, along with a few side rooms for the museum servants and the management. For good lighting conditions, the rooms should be as high as possible, which was limited by “the consideration not to raise the new museum noticeably above the existing one and not to narrow the rooms, which are not very deep, with vaults”. Stüler solved this challenge by using iron constructions for the ceilings on the third floor without exception, which “although constructed according to the line of the ceiling vault, did not exert any thrust on the surrounding walls, but were only allowed to serve to support the vault constructions and at the same time to close the walls anchor ". He improved the lighting by adding windows to the airspace of the Greek and Egyptian courts, i.e. from two sides. The lower room height compared to the other floors did not allow large-scale mural cycles, which were created there in the upper wall zones. The floors were made of oak parquet, a rather soft and sensitive material. This was justified by the fact that the exhibits in the collections on the lower floors are much lighter than the exhibits in the collections, some of which weigh tons, and the smaller flow of visitors to these special collections.

Kupferstichkabinett
Ceiling in the Green Hall, around the middle four medallions with portraits of Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Lucas van Leyden and Hans Holbein, painting on the left: The industry of copperplate printing , painting on the right: The invention of painting ; Panel by Friedrich August Stüler, 1862

In the north wing around the airspace of the Egyptian court were the rooms of the copper engraving cabinet, which also contained a collection of hand drawings by famous masters.

In the elongated Red Hall , which is accessible to all visitors, named after the color of the walls, ten flat-arched iron girders supported the simply painted ceiling. The artistic coating of the iron ties with gilded figures and arabesques made of cast zinc was less elaborate than in the niobid hall below. Medallions above the windows showed "Celebrites of the gravestone and the crayon". In a niche in the north wall of the hall there was a bust of Albrecht Dürer .

In the adjoining Green Hall or Hall of Hand Drawings , named after the light green color of its walls, the collection of hand drawings, which comprised around 30,000 sheets at the time the museum opened, was kept. The showpiece of the interior was the flat vaulted ceiling, which was structured by four painted belt arches "in the color of the burnt clay" and by gilded zinc cast strips. A group of children wearing wreaths danced around a bright dark blue field in the middle. The famous engravers and draftsmen Rembrandt van Rijn , Anthonis van Dyck , Lucas van Leyden and Hans Holbein the Younger depicted four raised medallions . In the front and back panels of the ceiling, the two rectangular paintings depicted The Invention of Painting and The Industry of Copper Printing , the spaces in between were filled with scenes with smaller figures, allegories, ornaments and arabesques in bright colors.

Another eight bowstring bearers carried the simply painted ceiling in the Blue Hall , which "[...] thanks to its soft light blue gains an extremely delicate, light and airy appearance that fills our soul with cheerful comfort". This room housed the study collection of the Kupferstichkabinett, which "is only opened at the special request of one or more familiar people". Half a million sheets were kept in the collection of prints at the time of the opening. The exhibition concept at that time in the words of Stülers:

“In all of these rooms, the walls and glass cabinets are used to display the important elements of the collection, so that the history of engraving and woodcutting is presented to even the casual visitor in the best products and for further pursuit and enjoyment, which in the very rich collection finds the most complete satisfaction. Pictures that belong more to the field of hand drawings decorate the walls, smaller ones are arranged on movable screen walls. "

Clad iron construction in the art chamber halls
Kunstkammer

The rooms of the Art Chamber , a collection of historic [r] monuments and works of art industry of the Middle Ages as of recent times, gorgeous ivories and scrap factories in wood, curiosities in glass, porcelain, etc. , grouped around the airspace of the Greek court in the southern wing.

The massive marble columns and arches on the lower floors were replaced by light, space-saving iron constructions. The filigree ornaments were not made of cast iron, since experience shows that finer ornaments on such large construction parts emerge from the [iron] casting very impure and imperfect. Stüler therefore had the ornaments made in cast zinc and gilded like the cornices made of sheet zinc and thus clad the very modern iron core shape with this art form.

“Despite the cladding, the dimensions of the thicknesses in all architectural and ornamental forms were very moderate and this entire metal architecture could be gilded without creating the impression of overloaded splendor. This impression was even softened by simple stencil painting in brown tones in suitable places and the character of a fine and careful execution, as it is characteristic of the metalwork of antiquity and the 16th century, was impressed on the whole.

Simple stencil paintings adorned the flat vaulted ceilings in the Eastern Art Chamber and in the Western Art Chamber , the walls were kept red in all the halls, but overall the halls in their color decoration show nothing worth mentioning. "

The majolica hall , located between the western and eastern Kunstkammersaal, had six flat domes on its iron structure, similar to the flat-domed hall on the ground floor. The domes were decorated in a more rich manner , motivated by the purpose of the hall for the display of the rich collection of majolica and enamels. For this purpose, Stüler designed 2.9 meter high and 3.1 meter wide glass cabinets.

At the southwest corner of the building was the Star Hall or Gothic Hall , a polygonal room for holding church equipment. Another iron structure was hidden under the “Gothic” vault that covered the room - the thin, light walls on the third floor would not have been able to withstand the pressure of a real vault. Screwed angles connected the simple flat iron to a rib structure. In between was a grid made of fine wire netting that was plastered and painted. Stüler used the irregular shape of the room and the ceiling to hide the museum's crooked floor plan.

Movies

See also

literature

(sorted chronologically)

  • The royal museums in Berlin. A selection of the most exquisite art treasures of painting, sculpture and architecture in the north German metropolis presented in a series of the most excellent steel engravings with explanatory texts . Payne, Leipzig / Dresden 1855, pp. 215-251. Digitized, Heidelberg University Library
  • Royal museums. Division of Egyptian antiquities: the wall paintings in the various rooms. Reprint of the original edition from 1855, Arcus-Verlag, Weimar, ISBN 978-3-00-040460-3 .
  • Friedrich August Stüler: The new museum in Berlin. 24 panels . Ernst & Korn, Berlin 1862.
  • Christine Wolf (Red.): The New Museum in Berlin. A monument preservation plea for additional restoration . Kulturbuch-Verlag, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-88961-150-8 . (=  Contributions to the preservation of monuments in Berlin . Issue 1)
  • Central Institute for Art History, Munich (ed.): Berlin's museums. History and future . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-422-06135-5 , pp. 59–144.
  • Eva Börsch-Supan, Dietrich Müller-Stüler : Friedrich August Stüler. 1800-1865 . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-422-06161-4 , pp. 67–74, 262, 314–322, 907–911.
  • National Museums in Berlin, Federal Office for Building, State Monument Office Berlin (ed.): The New Museum Berlin. Conservation, restoration, further building in the world heritage. Leipzig, EA Seemann Verlag 2009, ISBN 978-3-86502-204-2 (English-language edition, ISBN 978-3-86502-207-3 )
  • Andreas Kilger: The New Museum, Berlin - The state of construction around 1990. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-422-06888-9 .
  • Friederike von Rauch, David Chipperfield: Neues Museum . Interview with David Chipperfield, engl./dt. Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7757-2376-3 .
  • Margret Dorothea Minkels : The founders of the New Museum Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia and Elisabeth of Baiern . Norderstedt 2012, ISBN 978-3-8448-0212-2 .
  • Bénédicte Savoy, Philippa Sissis (ed.): The Berlin Museum Island: Impressions of international visitors (1830–1990). An anthology. Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-412-20991-9 .
  • National Museums in Berlin - Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Elke Blauert (Ed.): The Neues Museum. Architecture. Collections. History. Nicolai Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-89479-674-7 .
  • Chris van Uffelen : Museum architecture . Ullman, Potsdam 2010, ISBN 978-3-8331-6058-5 , pp. 218-221.
  • Werner Lorenz: The new Museum Berlin . Federal Chamber of Engineers, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-941867-17-8 .
  • Publications on “Neues Musemum Berlin” in the catalog of the German National Library

Web links

Commons : Neues Museum (Berlin)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

photos

Individual evidence

  1. smb.museum
  2. Number of visitors to the museums of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin * from 2011 to 2019. In: Statista. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
  3. ^ David Chipperfield Architects (ed.): Neues Museum: Museumsinsel Berlin; Documentation and planning. Druckteam Berlin 2003, OCLC 248789304 , p. 5.
  4. Christina Tilmann: Pillars to Athens . In: Der Tagesspiegel , June 27, 2007.
  5. Isabell Jürgens: Colonnades as a new entrance . In: Berliner Morgenpost , June 28, 2007.
  6. Architect announces new planning. ddp / Spiegel Online , December 13, 2006.
  7. ^ Speech by the Minister of State for Culture Christina Weiss on June 24, 2003 ( Memento of May 23, 2006 in the Internet Archive ).
  8. a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Friedrich August Stüler: The new museum in Berlin: 24 panels. Ernst & Korn, Berlin 1862, explanations, panels I – XII.
  9. Berlin and its remnants of debris stuck together . World online
  10. Correspondence Gesellschaft Historisches Berlin e. V. on the petition ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ghb-online.de
  11. ^ Initiative “Save the Museum Island” ( Memento from January 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) with the exact wording of the referendum and other documents
  12. New Museum. Plan. Information. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museuminsel Berlin, sheet with floor overview from around 2011.
  13. New Museum. State Museums in Berlin, Museum Island Berlin, leaflet from 05/2011.
  14. Nefertiti attracts most visitors to the museum. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. December 29, 2011, p. 19.
  15. press release. ( Memento from May 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ; PDF; 49 kB) Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation; Retrieved February 16, 2013.
  16. ^ Heinrich Wefing : Brittle sensation. In: Die Zeit , No. 10/2009, p. 47.
  17. ^ Hanno Rauterberg : Damaged beautiful . In: Die Zeit , No. 42/2009, p. 51.
  18. Dankwart Guratzsch : Berlin and its remnants of debris stuck together . In: The world
  19. Nefertiti in ruins - world heritage damaged . In: Statement by the Gesellschaft Historisches Berlin on the reopening of the Neues Museum on Museum Island in Berlin on October 16 and 17, 2009
  20. Current exhibitions. In: New Museum Berlin. Retrieved July 18, 2020 .
  21. ^ Russians & Germans. 1000 years of art, history and culture at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, accessed on February 16, 2013.
  22. In the light of Amarna. 100 Years Fund of the Nefertiti National Museums in Berlin, accessed on February 16, 2013.
  23. Nostra Award ( Memento of the original from May 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. from Europa Nostra @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.europanostra.org
  24. Great Nike 2010: Reconstruction of the New Museum. Association of German Architects, awarded on May 8, 2010.
  25. ^ Neues Museum Berlin Wins 2011 Prize Fundació Mies van der Rohe on Facebook, accessed on April 12, 2011.
  26. EU Architecture Prize for the New Museum . Focus Online, accessed April 12, 2011.
  27. ^ Architecture award to David Chipperfield . In: Saarbrücker Zeitung. July 1, 2011, p. B4
  28. ^ Kristian Ludwig: The New Museum. From the jewel of the Museum Island to the cuckoo's egg of monument preservation and museologists . ( Memento of November 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) 2006.
  29. ^ Neues Museum Berlin, Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, Museum of Prehistory and Early History; Ed.s: Seyfried, Friederike; Wemhoff, Matthias; Munich, Prestel, 2009, p. 17
  30. Statistics / Sights . In: Berliner Adreßbuch , 1875, after part 4, p. 169.
  31. Friedrich Wilhelm Wolff (not Albert), cf. Bloch / Einholz / v. Samson: Ethos and Pathos. The Berlin School of Sculpture. Contributions to the exhibition, Berlin 1990, p. 582
  32. a b c d e f g without naming the author: Berlin and its art treasures. The royal museums in Berlin: A selection of the most exquisite art treasures of painting, sculpture and architecture in the northern German metropolis presented in a series of the most excellent steel engravings with explanatory texts. Payne, Leipzig / Dresden 1855, pp. 215-251.
  33. ^ Ernst Friedel : Stüler and his royal pupil. In: Ernst Friedel, Oskar Schwebel: Pictures from the Mark Brandenburg, primarily the capital of the Reich. Verlag von Otto Spamer , Leipzig 1881, pp. 39–43, quote: p. 40.
  34. Josef Durm (Ed.): Handbook of Architecture. IV. Part: Design, layout and furnishing of the buildings. 6. Half Volume: Buildings for Education, Science and Art. Arnold Bergstrasse publisher, Darmstadt 1893, p. 284.
  35. ^ A b c Friedrich August Stüler: The new museum in Berlin: 24 panels. Ernst & Korn, Berlin 1862, explanations, panels XIII – XVI.
  36. ^ A b Friedrich August Stüler: The new museum in Berlin: 24 panels. Ernst & Korn, Berlin 1862, explanations, panels XVII – XX.
  37. ^ Friedrich Adler : The New Museum in Berlin . In: Journal of Construction . 3, 1853, pp. 23-34 and pp. 571-586, quoted on p. 26.
  38. ^ A b Friedrich August Stüler: The new museum in Berlin: 24 panels. Ernst & Korn, Berlin 1862, explanations, panels XXI – XXIV.
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on April 4, 2006 in this version .

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '12.5 "  N , 13 ° 23' 52"  E