The buildings at the Kulturforum
What belongs to the Kulturforum
Find out more about the buildings at the Kulturforum. Much belongs to the State Museums in Berlin (SMB), but not everything.
Painting Gallery
The museum Painting Gallery (Gemäldegalerie) - rather inconspicuous from the outside - belongs to the State Museums of Berlin (SMB) and is one of Berlin's cultural treasuries. In its spacious exhibition rooms, it presents one of the most important collections of the world's most valuable and famous paintings by the Old Masters from Europe. The somewhat recessed location, far away from the stream of tourists, makes the Painting Gallery one of the absolute insider tips in Berlin's museum landscape - here you can still look at some of the most famous works of art of all time without stress or scrambling.
Entrance to the picture gallery from Sigismundstrasse
Photos: Philipp Eder
Philharmonie
The Philharmonie at the Kulturforum is the home of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. It is one of the best and most renowned concert halls for classical music in the world.
The foundation stone of the building was laid on September 16, 1960 and the Philharmonie was opened on October 15, 1963. The building is one of the main works of the architect Hans Scharoun. The design of the interior became a model for many other concert halls.
Projects like "Rhythm is it" also show the important social component of the Berlin Philharmonie. "Of everything that music can do, the most important thing for me is: bringing people together." (Sir Simon Rattle)
The lunch concerts are also a very nice opportunity to socialize - which unfortunately has to be paused at the moment.
Chamber Music Hall
The chamber music hall was opened in 1987 and has 1,180 seats.
Around 240 chamber and orchestral concerts are held each year with a smaller cast.
The architect Edgar Wisniewski continued the planning for the chamber music hall based on sketches of his architectural partner Hans Scharoun. Compared to the first drafts by Hans Scharoun, the building is now significantly larger.
From 1976 to 1983 a debate was held in the House of Representatives about the cost of realizing the chamber music hall, which only ended on July 20, 1983 with the decision of the Governing Mayor Richard von Weizsäcker to build it. The building should be completed for the 750th anniversary of Berlin in 1987.
On April 10, 1984 construction could finally begin. The topping-out ceremony was on June 27, 1986 and the first concert was given on October 28, 1987.
Philharmonic and Chamber Music Hall
Photos: Philipp Eder
New State Library and Ibero-American Institute
The New State Library (Haus Potsdamer Straße 33) and the Ibero-American Institute are institutions of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK).
In 1963 a realization competition including an urban development idea part was carried out, which the architect Hans Scharoun won in 1964. In the new building, the book stocks that were relocated during the Second World War were to be brought together again. In addition, first ideas for an urban development of a cultural forum were to be developed within the urban development ideas section. The library was built from 1967 to 1978 and the building also houses the Ibero-American Institute (IAI).
The New State Library forms the eastern end of the urban cultural forum ensemble designed by Scharoun. Not so much because of the division of Berlin since the building of the Wall in 1961, but rather the originally planned route of the City Motorway West-bypass between the border strip and the New State Library, Scharoun had the eastern facade designed as a "rear".
Together with the other buildings at the Kulturforum, the listed building symbolized the German commitment to the free western part of the city. Today the library is back in the heart of Berlin. The reunification gave the house the desired all-German readership. Since then, the New State Library at the Kulturforum in conjunction with the house at Unter den Linden is the largest academic universal library in Germany.
Ibero-American Institute
The Ibero-American Institute (IAI) is also part of the Berlin Kulturforum. It has been part of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) since 1962. The IAI has been located at the Kulturforum in the new building of the New State Library since 1978.
The institute sees itself as an interdisciplinary institution of scientific and cultural exchange with Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal. It houses a knowledge archive with the largest European special library for the Ibero-American cultural area. In addition, it is a place of knowledge production, knowledge transfer and cultural translations. The unique combination of information center, research center and cultural center makes the IAI a platform for cooperation and a catalyst for intercultural and transcultural dialogues.
The IAI brings these cultures closer in numerous events. In addition to communicating culture, the event program also serves to present the institute's collections and its interdisciplinary research and publication activities to a broad audience.
View of the New State Library and the Ibero-American Institute
Photos: Philipp Eder
New National Gallery
The design and building of the New National Gallery (Neue Nationalgalerie) was given in 1962 as a direct order to the architect Mies van der Rohe. After three years of construction (construction began in 1965) it was opened as the first museum at the Kulturforum on September 15, 1968. From 2015 to August 2021, the New National Gallery was extensively renovated and now shines again as it did when it opened 54 years ago.
The museum was originally commissioned by the State of Berlin for a gallery from the twentieth century, which also includes works from the 19th century from the holdings of the National Gallery founded in 1861. After reunification, however, the increased holdings of the Neue Nationalgalerie required a reorganization, so that now the “light temple made of glass” - itself an architectural icon of modernity - only includes 20th century European painting and sculpture from classical modernism to art until the 1960s. These include works by artists such as Munch, Kirchner, Picasso, Klee, Feininger, Dix and Kokoschka.
New National Gallery
Photos: Philipp Eder
Institute for Music Research and Musical Instrument Museum
The building
The State Institute for Music Research (SIM) and the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) were built in 1979-84 by Edgar Wisniewski based on the design of the architect Hans Scharoun, who died in 1972.
According to Scharoun's idea, in direct connection to the Berlin Philharmonie, a "resounding antipole" to the large building of the State Library / the Ibero-American Institute has been created here within the Kulturforum. Details in the facade design of the buildings as well as in their furnishings confirm this imaginary connection. The architect envisioned an interaction between science, musical life and the presentation of historical musical instruments.,
The collection
The Musical Instrument Museum of the State Institute for Music Research collects and presents music instruments from the 16th century to the present day and also demonstrates their sound in live concerts and guided tours. Of the nearly 3,000 instruments in the collection founded in 1888, around 800 can be seen.
The collection of Naumburg wind instruments is outstanding, the almost complete set of instruments from a central German town piping around 1600. The highlights also include early harpsichords and spinets, for example from the workshop of the Ruckers family, and the famous Bach harpsichord and its replicas. String instruments by European masters such as Stradivari, Gagliano, Stainer, Krouchdaler, woodwind instruments from Hotteterre, Denner, Quantz and others can be seen as well as a traveling harpsichord from Queen Sophie-Charlotte of Prussia, flutes from Friedrich II., Carl Maria von Weber's fortepiano, an English one Church organ from the workshop of John Gray and the largest cinema and theater organ on the European continent, the four-manual “Mighty Wurlitzer”, which can also be heard regularly in concerts.
Musical instrument museum
Photo: Philipp Eder
St. Matthew Church
The St. Matthew Church (Protestant parish) was built in 1844-46 in former Friedrichsvorstadt as a three-aisled brick church in neo-Romanesque style based on a design by Friedrich August Stüler (the building master was Hermann Wenzel). At that time the area was still sparsely populated and the church stood free in parkland. At the end of the 19th century, the settlement grew explosively and the St. Matthew Church with the Matthäikirchplatz became the central square in the Tiergarten district.
1956-1960 the church, which had been destroyed in the war, was rebuilt under the direction of the architect Jürgen Emmerich. While the outside area was based on the historical specifications, the interior was redesigned. The church is now a listed building.
The church tower is accessible and offers an impressive view over the Kulturforum area as well as the Potsdamer Platz area. Classical concerts are regularly held in the church. For more information, see the St. Matthew Church website.
St. Matthew Church
Photos: Philipp Eder
Decorative Arts Museum
The Museum of Decorative Arts (Kunstgewerbemuseum) is the oldest of its kind in Germany. Even after its losses in the Second World War, it has one of the most important collections of European handicrafts from the Middle Ages to the present. The collection has two locations: the main building at the Kulturforum and Köpenick Castle (Schloss Köpenick). In the building at the Kulturforum, a tour on an area of 7,000 square meters leads through the historical development of handicrafts from the Middle Ages to the present.
Art collection
The museum collects European handicrafts from all post-antique style epochs in art history, including gold and silversmiths, glass, enamel and porcelain vessels, furniture and room panels as well as tapestries, costumes and silk fabrics. The clients for the precious arts and crafts come from the same circle that employed the leading architects, sculptors and painters: clergy, court, nobility, patriciate.
The acquisitions of the Kamer / Ruf fashion collection (2003), including 660 costumes from the 18th to 20th centuries, and the Uli Richter fashion collection (2005) also make fashion a further focus of the collection.
The building
The new building of the Decorative Arts museum at the Kulturforum is part of the museum complex for European art. For the planning and construction of the complex the architect Rolf Gutbrod was commissioned in 1967, but the museum of Decorative Arts, completed in 1985, was already exposed to severe criticism during the construction period (“brutalist architecture of the 1970s”, “concrete bunker”) and Gutbrod was withdrawn from the construction of the other buildings.
In 2004 the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning launched a competition to remedy functional deficits of the museum. The award-winning Kühn Malvezzi office was entrusted with the redesign of the exhibition rooms and entrance.
Decorative Arts Museum and Piazzetta
Photo: Philipp Eder
Museum of Prints and Drawings + Art Library
The Museum of Prints and Drawings (Kupferstichkabinett) and the Art Library (Kunstbibliothek) at the Kulturforum are among the most important institutions of its types in Germany.
The one building for both institutions was built in 1987-1992 by the architect Rolf Gutbrod. The shape and material of the new building refer to the Museum of Decorative Arts.
The Museum of Prints and Drawings has an extensive collection of "art on paper". With 110,000 drawings and approx. 550,000 prints, it is one of the most important graphic collections in the world. The holdings include works from Botticelli and Dürer to Picasso and Beuys. Focal points / highlights of the collection are shown in special exhibitions.
With around 400,000 volumes, the
Art Library is one of the most important specialist art libraries in Germany. Its rich fund of specialist literature attracts around 35,000 readers annually.
Art library and print room
Photo: Philipp Eder
Science Center Berlin for Social Research (WZB)
Architecture
The Science Center Berlin (WZB) was founded in 1969 and has only been based at the Kulturforum since 1988. The architecture office James Stirling, Michael Wilford & Associates, which received the building contract as part of the IBA (International Building Exhibition Berlin; mid-1980s), restored the old building of the former Reich Insurance Office (1894 by August Busse) and added several new buildings.
Stirling's guiding principle of “creating a friendly, unbureaucratic place” that should look more like a college than an office building, found its architectural implementation in a building complex of several individual buildings grouped around an inner courtyard. In their floor plans, these take up well-known architectural forms from building history, such as the Greek “Stoa” and the “Theatre”, as well as church-like components up to the library in the form of a “Campanile”.
Research
The Berlin Science Center for Social Research (WZB) is a social science research institute. 140 international scientists conduct problem-oriented basic research here. Economists, sociologists, political scientists, legal scholars and historians research development trends, adaptation problems and innovation opportunities in modern societies.
Important research fields of the WZB are:
- Education, training and the labor market
- Social inequality and problems of the welfare state
- democracy and civil society
- Mobility and Transport
- Competition, State and Governance
- innovation and science policy
- Intercultural and international conflicts.
An intensive public discourse takes place in lecture series and panel discussions.
Science Center Berlin (WZB)
Photos: Philipp Eder