“The museum of today is a place of social inquiry. It is a place of living dialog, a place that makes it possible to experience the creative potential of a specific time – for a broad audience, with reference to contemporary lifeworlds. But a museum has to reinvent itself over and over again. It is many things at the same time: backward- and forward-looking, poetical, experimental, social, emotional, independent.”

Udo Kittelmann,
Director of the Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin)

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At the same time, the immediate experience of art, exchanging views on art, and everyday encounters in the new museum building will all be tightly interwoven. The core of the design by Herzog & de Meuron is two “boulevards” in the museum that intersect: two public paths that allow people to walk through the building from north to south, east to west, or vice versa. The arrangement affords interesting perspectives on different levels, as well as views into exhibition rooms and vistas of art works.

The boulevards are also meeting places and promenades. In this way, the new building will be a bridge that joins the different facets of the Kulturforum.

It will create a dynamic junction between the city and the diverse museums and cultural institutions nearby at the Kulturforum. 

But the art museum also stands for deceleration in the midst of vibrant metropolitan life. It offers places to linger, such as the stair seats along the boulevards, a quiet courtyard at the plane tree, which is a natural monument, and spaces for the visitors in the exhibition areas, that offer possibilities to study or relax. Specific information on the collections will be provided there and the public will be stimulated to do its own research and evaluate content critically.

Above and beyond the exhibition spaces, there will be areas in the new museum that will be accessible outside the regular museum opening hours. A museum shop at the north entrance, a museum café with a terrace and a view of the Philharmonie, and a restaurant at the western courtyard will add even more life to the Kulturforum. There will be a large

media and event space for podium discussions, scientific symposiums, and readings. Film retrospectives, dance pieces, and live performances with a relationship to the twentieth century will also take place there. The event venue will be accessible via a large outdoor staircase, which will also serve as a public meeting place.

Art can make many things possible: direct, lively, and critical access,   initial encounters, and detailed examination – in active conversation with other guests, in groups, or individually in quiet observation. People from a wide range of backgrounds and generations can exchange their experiences with others in the museum and critically focus on the significance of twentieth-century topics for current, social developments. 

Areas for participation and interaction between the public and the works   in the collection will be integrated into the exhibition spaces.

Spacious multifunctional rooms will be available for activities with children, teens, families, educational partners (daycare centers, schools, universities, etc.) and members of Berlin’s communities.

The spacious multifunctional rooms can also be used for various conference and event formats with concepts developed by other institutions of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz at the Kulturforum in an interdisciplinary effort.