Berlin’s new museum is planned on a seemingly intimidating site surrounded on all sides by exceptionally strong and articulate architectures, sandwiched between a never fully accepted urban motorway and an anemic pedestrian Promenade: the two typologies that (unfortunately) define our cities today. As in judo, we have embraced the site’s dilemmas and turned them into the very leitidee of the project. We don’t interpret this competition as a loyalty test, we divide our loyalties between the surrounding masterpieces.
Two diagonals divide the site in four sectors. Each sector relates precisely to its context and responds directly to its own unique counterpart: the South sector to Mies, the West sector to the Church and the Gemäldegalerie’s piazzetta, opposite the Museum’s entrance, the North to the concert hall of Scharoun, the East to Motorway and Library. The museum is the result of the reassembly of the four sections: it combines classical rooms in the South, more flowing expressionistic accommodations in the West, auditoriums inside and outside to face Scharoun in the North and panoramic urban vistas on the East. The role of the Museum has changed – for many, the Museum is an urban living room.
Project Team : Rem Koolhaas, Chris van Duijn, Katrin Betschinger, Michalis Hadjistyllis, Andrew Le, Marius Hamelot, Shinji Takagi
Stages Involved : Concept