David Chipperfield Architects will present the design of the James Simon Gallery, the new Entrance Building on Berlin’s Museum Island
The project aims to create a new address on the Museum Island - a new entrance and reception area which exploits the possibilities of the most effective side of the site towards the Lustgarten, the Schlossbrücke (the Palace Bridge) and the street Unter den Linden, while at the same time supporting the urban relationships of the existing historic buildings.
A staggering of the building volumes to the Kupfergraben canal and to the north supports the view from the Schlossbrücke into the depths of the Museum Island and allows the main floors of the west façade of the Neues Museum to remain in view.
The actual building volume of the New Entrance Building is situated between the elevated colonnade and the new colonnaded courtyard in such a way that the longitudinal elevations of the new building are screened by the two colonnades. A wide, open outdoor staircase develops from the front end of the building facing the Lustgarten as a generous entrance motif, providing the main access to the New Entrance Building. The visitor will thus be led to the upper level, corresponding with the Pergamon Museum’s main exhibition floor, and received there in a generous hall. The café and link to the Pergamon Museum are embedded in the colonnade to the west of the entrance hall. A mezzanine floor between the foyer adjacent to the colonnaded courtyard and the upper reception hall accommodates services such as cloakroom, toilets and shop, while the temporary exhibition spaces, the auditorium as well as seminar rooms are situated in the basement floor, connecting with the Archaeological Promenade.
The materiality of the building in reconstituted stone with natural stone aggregate blends in with the polychrome material palette of the Museum Island with its limestone, sandstone and rendered facades.
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