Parzinger: Now the Kulturforum can become the Museum Island of Modernism
Press release from 11/14/2019
Budget Committee of the German Bundestag approves cost plan for the Nationalgalerie's Museum of the 20th Century
The cost plan for the Museum of the 20th Century at the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin was approved today at the German Bundestag's budget committee meeting to finalise the 2020 budget. The President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, said: "This is a good day for the art city of Berlin and the Kulturforum. Behind Potsdamer Platz, the new building by Herzog & de Meuron will create the Museum Island of Modernism. I would like to thank the Budget Committee of the German Bundestag, Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and, last but not least, Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters that the Museum of the 20th Century for the Nationalgalerie's unique collection can now be built. In a few days, we will be able to celebrate the ground-breaking ceremony and then it will become clear once again what is being created here: a fascinating museum building on the art and contemporary history of a formative century that will trigger social debates in the present. And at the same time, a place will be created that completes the Kulturforum because it finally connects it - from the Philharmonie and our State Institute for Music Research to the Neue Nationalgalerie, from the State Library and the Ibero-American Institute to the Art Library, the Museum of Prints and Drawings, the Museum of Decorative Arts and, last but not least, the Picture Gallery. I am sure that even the critics will recognise the opportunities of this new building by Herzog & de Meuron. We know that the costs of the project are high. This is precisely why we will have to monitor it closely in order to keep within the financial framework that has now been set."