Ludwig Unter den Linden, Karl Friedrich in the church and Claudia at the Kulturforum - the highlights of 2020 were presented at the SPK's annual reception
Press release from 02/05/2020
This year, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is preparing for the reopening of the Staatsbibliothek Unter den Linden and the handover of the keys to the Neue Nationalgalerie.
As SPK President Hermann Parzinger said at the traditional annual reception in the James-Simon-Galerie, the Staatsbibliothek's main building will be state-of-the-art after many years of fundamental refurbishment, additions in keeping with its listed status and technical equipment. "From early summer, users and staff can look forward to a state-of-the-art library with a digitisation centre and group study rooms, with a magnificent entrance on the boulevard Unter den Linden that exudes the splendour of the imperial era, a time when libraries were true temples of education and science. We are opening a forward-looking research library that is also a treasure house with an inexhaustibly rich collection of original writings and testimonies from so many great minds," says Parzinger.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie is expected to be renovated and handed over to the SPK in December and then reopened a few months later. The many original components, which have been carefully dismantled and refurbished, are currently being gradually reinstalled. The President emphasised that the building is currently being brought up to the very latest technical standards. Parzinger also referred to the opening of the Humboldt Forum in September. Even though the museum floors will not open to visitors until 2021, the Museum Island is looking forward to its new neighbour.
Last year was a successful one for the National Museums in Berlin and the Berlin State Library. The museums recorded 4.188 million visits to their buildings, despite the restrictions at the Pergamonmuseum and the closed Neue Nationalgalerie. By suspending the user fee and extending opening hours, the Staatsbibliothek was able to increase its user numbers. Since October, the number of applications has doubled.
The Geheime Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz and the Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung with the Musikinstrumenten-Museum will also offer more service and greater user-friendliness in future: they will go online in spring with completely revised websites that are much more user-orientated in terms of language, services and navigation.
Some of the year's highlights are taking place in Russia: An exhibition on the Victoria of Calvatone, an important object from the collection of antiquities that was relocated due to the war, will run at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg until March. In June, the major exhibition "Iron Age - Europe without Borders" will open, for which the Museum of Prehistory and Early History will first loan several hundred objects to St. Petersburg and then to Moscow. There they will be exhibited together with artefacts from the same find complexes that were transferred from the Berlin museum to the Hermitage, the Pushkin Museum and the State Historical Museum in Moscow at the end of the Second World War.
The five institutions presented their annual programmes at the annual reception of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which was attended by over 200 guests from the worlds of politics, business, science, culture, tourism and the media. The State Library and the State Institute for Music Research are dedicating themselves to the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth: from 11 March, the exhibition "This kiss to the whole world! The Beethoven Collection of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin" will be on display from 11 March, while Potsdamer Platz will see the launch of "'B' and Me!", a multi-layered educational programme that brings the composer to life for adults and children.
The Ibero-American Institute is celebrating its 90th birthday with a major anniversary event in October, and the Geheimes Staatsarchiv PK is dedicating itself to restoring the plans from the studio of architect Franz Heinrich Schwechten.
In September, the National Museums in Berlin will reopen the Friedrichswerder Church as an exhibition centre for the Old National Gallery. The latter will be showing the exhibition "Death Wish and Decadence - Belgian Symbolism" in its main building from May. In September, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History will follow in the James-Simon-Galerie with the show "Germanen - eine archäologische Bestandsaufnahm". The Art Library is showing a major retrospective of fashion designer Claudia Skoda, who was once a key figure in the West Berlin underground scene, for the first time.