Museum of the 20th Century: Claudia Roth’s green dreams in Berlin

2023-04-19 14:40:00

COn April 18th, laudia Roth hosted a discussion in the Neue Nationalgalerie, a “visionary” round, as she put it herself. At the beginning, the Minister of State for Culture quoted Ernst Bloch: It is about the “not yet in existence”, namely the “transformation” of the Kulturforum in Berlin, which has been discussed for decades, and the “Museum of the 20th Century”, which is currently under construction and cost 450 million euros, by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron into a kind of green oasis for the citizens.

The museum was designed in 2015 as an extension of the collection of the Neue Nationalgalerie with works from private collections in Berlin, permanent loans from Gerhard Richter, which are currently being exhibited for the first time in Mies van der Rohe’s old building, and works by Joseph Beuys, which are still in the Hamburger Bahnhof are accommodated. Fortunately, the concept of this collector and artist boys club has survived since the groundbreaking ceremony in 2019. The new museum director Klaus Biesenbach emphasized again that it is difficult to design a museum with only eight percent female artists in the collection – and that acquisitions and loans must be taken into account.

East facade of the planned museum

Which: Herzog & de Meuron/Olafur Eliasson

But that seems to be Biesenbach’s smallest problem after yesterday. The bigger thing is the construction of the so-called “barn”, the planning of which recently caused a real uproar. As early as 2021, the Federal Court of Auditors classified the museum as harmful to the climate and far too expensive – and called for consequences. The construction sector is responsible for around half of CO₂ emissions worldwide, but has opened up to innovations in recent years. It is expected that 95 percent of building materials could soon be recycled. In this context, the “Museum of the 20th Century” – like most of the existing museums – appears to be a relic from another time. So something had to be done. Even the Swiss architects could no longer escape this pressure.

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But the “transformation” turns out to be more than drastic. Only the hard numbers are impressive: The measures are intended to reduce the museum’s energy consumption by more than half, from the planned 102 to almost 43 kilowatt hours per square meter. Solar panels will cover the entire roof, which was hailed as a masterpiece of transparency in the first draft with its translucent tiles. Ten percent of the museum’s energy requirements are to be covered in this way, which is of course great news. These changes – combined with the order to start greening the property – reportedly cost €9.9 million, which has already been approved by the budget.

West facade of the “Museum of the 20th Century”

What: Herzog & de Meuron

How is that possible? It’s thanks to the triumph of sustainability over aesthetics that we’ll probably see more of in the future. Dirk Messner, President of the Federal Environment Agency, is the key witness for this victory. And he doesn’t mince his words: A “monument to the fossil age” was prevented.

The deletion of the monumental “gates” that had been planned for Potsdamer Strasse and were supposed to open the building to the State Library was celebrated as a great gain. A low, small entrance, a kind of lock, now shows itself and shields the building from the four-lane road. Biesenbach was delighted: “Where there are no gates, there are no more barns.” But now nicknames like “The Bunker” are already circulating. The flank towards the New National Gallery is now being considered as the main entrance to the museum, which was previously only planned for the delivery of art.

Community Building als Vision

But Biesenbach and Roth share the “vision” that on the other side, Sigismundstrasse (which separates the two houses) could be closed to cars, creating a kind of forecourt that would connect the Mies van der Rohe building with that of Klaus Biesenbach “Berlin modern” connects new building. Because the originally planned tunnel is definitely history, an important power line runs in the ground.

A fundamentally convincing idea, but only because Biesenbach and Roth also wanted extensive greenery around the entire building from the piazza to the Tiergarten, and Jacques Herzog immortalized it in the new renderings: unsealing, urban gardening, community building with the local residents, who probably support the idea. Klaus Biesenbach does a great job here, organized a kind of street festival that was attended by 7,000 citizens.

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But gradually the plans turned out to be beautiful dreams, which Claudia Roth prefers to call “visions”. Because neither the museum director nor the Minister of State for Culture have the power to dispose of the streets. The new Berlin government has to join in, and it is itself in the midst of a very large, unpredictable transformation.

One can only hope that they are sane and get on board, otherwise we are all left with a very bare look at the new design, then embedded in the familiar desert of concrete. And the fact that the museum lacks a key feature: the broken, rhythmic clinker brick facade, symbol of the beauty of daylight, now replaced by monochrome-washed, horizontally-furrowed walls designed to ward off the expected heat.

The homage to the neighboring St. Matthew’s Church has also been eliminated. Biesenbach describes the new facade as “very uniform”, almost earth-like, layered, elegant and modest.

Aesthetically extremely modest, yes, that’s the new design. In conversation with this newspaper, Jacques Herzog cannot understand the mourning for the facade. He prefers to use another word: He finds them “archaic”. After the gates were no longer wanted, it would have been absolutely necessary to look at the building again and to change it. Transformations were part of it.

The architect seems to be firmly convinced that the drama about the “barn” in Berlin, which he prefers to call “a house for everyone”, will have a happy ending. After the first controversial, indeed archaic draft, many were satisfied after draft two, but then came climate change and the energy crisis. At the moment one gets the impression that looking at the electricity meter in 2027, when the house opens a year later than planned, will decide whether the museum has become a “visionary” place.

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A day with Klaus Biesenbach