Reflection graduation process Name: Jelmer van der Zweep Student number: 4346068 Graduation studio ‘Beyond the White Cube – Museum of Twentieth Century Art for Berlin’ Chair: Interiors Buildings Cities Main mentor: Daniel Rosbottom Secondary mentors: Sam De Vocht and Sereh Mandias Delegate of Board of Examiners: Rob Nijsse Date: 08/12/2016 Relationship between research and design The research for the design of the New Berlin Museum of Twentieth Century Art consisted of three separate elements. As a collective we produced a book describing the analyses of six Dutch museums, which are the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Kröller- Müller Museum in Otterlo, Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Gallery Witte de With in Rotterdam and Museum De Pont in Tilburg. Analyses of the historical context, architectural changes over time, exhibitions, installation and techniques, were documented through the use of drawing, (cast) models, photographs and texts. The process of making the book helped a lot in understanding the complexity of a museum of modern art. Given as a separate course was the analysis of an international museum of modern or contemporary art. I analysed the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the museum that has become too small for displaying its collection and is the ‘initiator’ of the design project. The museum that I design is located next to the Neue Nationalgalerie and is to a certain extent an extension of Mies van der Rohe’s iconic modernist gallery. The research focussed on the position that the museum has in the city of Berlin, how it developed over time, the art that has been in the collection, the view of the architect in respect to the display of art, the way art has been exhibited and on what basis this museum is to be considered as valuable for museums in general. Redrawing the plans of the museum has given me great insights on how to deal with proportions of exhibition spaces, way of moving through the museum and positioning and dimensions of certain key elements like stairs, elevators, shafts and toilets. Another separate research course was of anthropological order. In this research I was interested on what exhibition strategies the curator can have in respect to video art. I have chosen the specific art type of video art, because its display asks for a much more specific gallery space when compared to other art types, such as painting or sculpture. Video art is a time-based art form that can consist of moving images, video, film, sound, light; potentially integrated in a large art installation. Therefore the space of display should provide the desired conditions in terms of light/darkness and sound. The outcomes of the research into video art has given me ideas on what gallery spaces are providing the best conditions for exhibiting video art and also what spaces are less suitable for this particular art form. In the end it depends on the medium where the art is shown on. When it is projected on a screen, it would be desirable for the space to be flexible in the way the amount of light can be adjusted. In the field research I have experienced multiple spaces where the video was not clearly visible, because there was too much daylight or artificial light coming into the space. When shown on a screen, the space can be more bright when compared to projected videos. Sound is the other major aspect of video art to be considered as ‘problematic’. In an exhibition that purely focusses on video art, one artwork could interfere with the other when they’re in close vicinity to each other. Putting certain video artworks in sound insulated boxes or adding headphones to the art piece are just two solutions that are implemented to deal with this issue. The architect of a museum has just a small influence in providing the best spaces suitable for video art. It basically comes to down to the design of flexible spaces that are easy to darken and could be closed off from adjacent spaces; for example by black curtains that serve as a light lock. But, when compared to older museums, as I have seen in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, newer museum are much better suitable for exhibiting video art. But this fact lies not only in the emergence of video art, all types of art, especially painting and drawings, require more and more climatized and purely artificial lit spaces. For these reasons, video art has not been a leading design question in the overall process of the graduation studio. At the P1 it has been the starting point for the design of a gallery space that culminated in a 1:33 model. At the P3 stage, spaces have been organised in such a way that flexibility is a main theme and these spaces could be suitable for the display of video art. In the further process when detailing those spaces, extra thinking should lay in the way spaces will be lit and darkened (when windows are present) and the way adjacent spaces can be closed off from each other and are insulated so they will not let sound through easily when video art is exhibited. Last part of the research had to deal with the city of Berlin. For this I did research the historical context of the monumental buildings that surround the museum that I design. I focused on this subject, because I wanted to know how to relate to these buildings. The buildings in the Kulturforum are positioned in such a way that they are islands in a spread landscape, and do not relate to each other that obviously. Architecturally spoken the Philharmonie, Kammermusiksaal and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin relate closely to each other, since they are designed by the same architect, but on a urban scale, these buildings do not relate that much to the Neue Nationalgalerie or Matthäuskirche. In the extensive brief for the design for the Twentieth Century Art Museum for the Kulturforum, one of the aspects the organisers of the competition find valuable is the fact that aforementioned mon- umental buildings take a prominent role in the urban fabric of the area. They suggest that these iconic objects are to be seen when being in or around the new museum. For my design this one of my starting points in the design process. I believe that every design in close vicinity of a monumental building should always respond to it in any other way. In the case of this design, this is done by putting emphasis on shaping the basic volume in such a way that people who would move around the Kulturforum always would get at least a glimpse of these monumental buildings. Looking at the major flows of people entering the Kulturforum, it is observed that they would come either from Potsdamer Platz from the east or the Reichpietschufer from the south. From both sides, a potential building mass will stand in front of the St. Matthäuskirch, as the building site is directly in between the church and the busy Potsdamer. In order to still get a vista to the church tower coming from the Potsdamer Platz, a lower volume is positioned in between to higher cubical volumes. Coming from Reichpietschufer, I kept as much distance from the Neue Nationalgalerie to see a large part of the church when one moves in northern direction. Relating the building mass to both the Nationalgalerie and the Philharmonie, the separate ‘blocks’ are aligned in such a manner, that the concert hall can be seen from the podium of Mies van der Rohe’s gallery. The large space between the building and the busy road acts hereby as ‘buffer zone’ and will be designed a pleasant way to walk from the Neue Nationalgalerie in the direction of the Philharmonie and vice versa. Entrances are positioned on both the east and west side in the most set-back part of the building, creating on both sides an entrance square. The entrance on the west side is thereby connecting to the museums around the piazetta. Fig. 1: Mass model (1:500) at the P2 presentation Relating to the residential time, the north-western ‘block’ is positioned in a way that it gives the Matthäikircheplatz a more enclosed character as is was in the 19th century. This volume also acts as frontal ‘end’ of the sloping piazetta, because of the height it has. My building mass is one of the largest of the students at the P2 presentation, and that is intentionally. I believe the current Kulturforum has a way to open character, where the lack of harmony is due to large distances between the buildings. Looking at the urban plan from when it was a residential area, it has a much more city-like character. For this reason the building mass is reaching beyond the given building site, coming closer to the Musikkammersaal and transforming the existing road in a pedestrian passage to the piazetta. By doing this, my design proposal tries to ‘connect’ the free-standing objects in a certain amount. Connecting to the Staatsbibliothek is a difficult task though, as it is not only a free-standing object on its own, but is also the only building on the whole building plot. Besides that, the six-lane road is a major dividing element in the organisation of the Kulturforum. Also through the different heights of the separate ‘blocks’, the building seeks a relation with its neighbouring buildings. The higher cubical volumes relate to the height of the Philharmonie and the Kammermusiksaal. The middle part refers to the nave of the church and the height of the Neue Nationalgalerie, whereas the lowest parts ‘connect’ to Arts Library and the lower parts of the Kammermusiksaal and the Staatsbibliothek.