Three domes for the colonnades
Press release from 07/31/2009
By the end of the year, the colonnades and the colonnade courtyard between the Old National Gallery and the Neues Museum will be extensively repaired and restored. Three domes destroyed during the war, which crowned three "little temples" on the banks of the Spree within the eastern row of columns, are currently being restored. The first of the domes will be placed on the south-eastern tip of the colonnades with a crane on 31 July 2009 from 11 am.
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, says: "The restoration of the Colonnade Courtyard will make the Museum Island even more attractive. In the urban life of the city, a place with an antique feel is being created here, a unique place to relax and enjoy - even during the hours when the museums are closed. The colonnades signalise openness and lightness, they frame and connect the buildings. Chipperfield has taken up this stylistic device again in his design of the James Simon Gallery."
The colonnades enclose the courtyard, which stretches between the Neues Museum, the banks of the Spree and around the Alte Nationalgalerie to the courtyard behind the Pergamonmuseum, on three sides, to the south, west and east. They create a direct urban-structural connection between the neoclassical buildings on Museum Island. The two buildings built by Friedrich August Stüler, the Alte Nationalgalerie and the Neues Museum, form an ensemble with the open spaces, which are united by porticoes as a connecting element. The colonnades to the south and east - on Bodestraße and on the banks of the Spree - largely survived the war and have been almost completely preserved to this day.
The colonnades on Museum Island were built in two sections, based on a design by Friedrich August Stüler from 1841. The colonnades on the south and east sides of the Neues Museum and on Bodestraße were built between 1853 and 1860, while those on the Spree side and north-east of the Alte Nationalgalerie were built between 1876 and 1878. The columned hall on the banks of the Spree was bordered at its northern and southern ends by an identical pavilion-like structure made of natural stone pillars with a domed roof ("little temple" at the time of construction) and interrupted in the centre by a similar structure. The pavilions are currently being restored to their original appearance and the domes are being replaced. Original fragments that were buried in the vault under the colonnade are also being used, such as rosettes and ceiling elements made of natural stone. The Berlin architects Petersen were commissioned to restore the colonnades.
The colonnade courtyard or garden of the Alte Nationalgalerie was laid out by Eduard Neide until 1880. Although only fragments remain, the layout of the original garden is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Museum Island Berlin as a registered garden monument. In order to redesign this open space within the framework of the protected layout, an international landscape architecture realisation competition was held in 2001. The first prize-winning concept by Berlin landscape architects Levin/Monsigny includes lawns, fountains, sculptures and granite paving, as well as planting with low box hedges and plane trees. In total, the restoration and rebuilding of the colonnades and the design of the colonnade courtyard will cost around 20 million euros. The colonnades surrounding the courtyard will be completed by the end of this year, the colonnade courtyard itself in spring 2010. The closed colonnades on the Spree, which are currently still being used as workshops by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, are not expected to be completed until the construction work on the Pergamonmuseum is finished in 2020.
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