Haus Bastian on Berlin's Museum Island is being officially handed over to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation today. From the summer, forward-looking educational concepts of the National Museums in Berlin will be developed and trialled there.
Press release from 03/12/2019
During the ceremonial handover of the keys, Foundation President Hermann Parzinger and Director General Michael Eissenhauer thanked Céline, Heiner and Aeneas Bastian for their extraordinarily generous gift. The building on Kupfergraben, designed by David Chipperfield Architects, has been dedicated to modern and contemporary art as the Bastian Gallery since 2007. In future, it will be called "Haus Bastian der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz" and will be used as a centre for cultural education.
Hermann Parzinger emphasises: "I would like to thank Céline, Heiner and Aeneas Bastian from the bottom of my heart for this immensely generous gift. They are thus joining the great tradition of outstanding supporters and patrons of the Staatliche Museen. Thanks to this extraordinary commitment, we will be able to turn the Museum Island into a place where new approaches to educational work can be explored. We see this as a huge opportunity. Museums today have to communicate with visitors in a completely different way than in the past, reach out to them and offer them something that turns their visit into an experience. When both Haus Bastian and the James-Simon-Galerie open their doors in the summer, it will become clear how we are engaging with our visitors with a whole new intensity."
Heiner Bastian says: "The exhibition centre 'Am Kupfergraben 10', which has often been described as the 'gateway to Museum Island', has long since become a public meeting place. Now the Staatliche Museen will continue on a path that, if we may put it this way, began ten years ago with our family's subjective view of a hundred years of European and North American art history."
Its prominent location at Kupfergraben 10, directly opposite the new reception building on Museum Island, the James-Simon-Galerie, also designed by Chipperfield, makes the building an ideal addition to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Museum Island - not least because of its distinctive architectural signature. In the light-flooded interior spaces, the large windows provide a view as far as the Neues Museum and the Humboldt Forum. They connect inside and outside.
"I can't imagine anything else in the 'Am Kupfergraben' rooms than a cultural life. I would like to see the past and the future come together here," says Aeneas Bastian.
Günter Winands, Ministerial Director at the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, says: "The Bastian family's generous donation to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation paves the way for the state museums in the field of cultural education and mediation into the future. No future-orientated museum is conceivable today without contemporary, well-founded educational work. The new centre will give new impetus to the efforts of the National Museums in Berlin to introduce young people in particular to their treasures and attract new target groups."
According to Michael Eissenhauer, the importance that the National Museums in Berlin attach to cultural education work is clear: "The signal effect of the new Centre for Cultural Education is enormous. The representative, light-flooded gallery building in a prominent location creates a striking visibility for the high value of educational and mediation work - a core task of the National Museums in Berlin."
In future, it will not only be possible to prepare for and follow up on museum visits in this building. Here, topics will be addressed that allow bridges to be built between the collections and museums. This will also include the Humboldt Forum, which will one day form a single unit with the Museum Island. The programme for young visitors is of particular importance. The variety of planned activities ranges from workshops, study and project days, open workshops to lectures and discussions and much more. There will be spacious work areas and rooms for researching and studying, communicating and discussing, presenting and reflecting on new experiences. The Education / Communication Department of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz is responsible for the concept of the Centre for Cultural Education.
Press images: https://www.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de/newsroom/presse/pressebilder.html