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Berlin. The entire museum has been closed to visitors for just under a year due to the need to completely renovate the Stülerbau West, the head building of the Berggruen Museum. Both the basic restoration of the listed building and the installation of modern museum technology as well as measures to improve sustainability and energy efficiency can now begin. A reopening is planned for 2026.

Initial construction work has already begun on the interior with preliminary investigations and sampling. Once the preparatory construction measures have been completed and the construction site has been set up, demolition work is expected to begin in September 2023. In October 2022, the building was handed over to the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning (BBR) for the realisation of the construction work. The time since the closure of the museum has been used intensively and effectively: In addition to clearing the museum and relocating numerous objects to an external storage facility, tendering for the trades and obtaining the necessary permits from the state of Berlin, the implementation planning for the construction project was finalised.

Meanwhile, the Museum Berggruen is on tour in Japan and China. In Tokyo and Osaka, almost 400,000 visitors came to see the museum's treasures. The museum is currently on tour in China, where visitors can see original works by Paul Klee, for example. The team led by museum director Gabriel Montua also sees the presentation in China as an advertisement for Berlin as a museum location.

"When it reopens in 2026, the Museum Berggruen will once again be an absolute magnet for visitors. The success of the tour is both an incentive and a commitment for the exhibition organisers to offer the Berlin public a museum experience at an international level. After the complete refurbishment, the conditions will be ideal for this. I am grateful to the BBR that it has also succeeded in building sustainably, which is not always easy when building in existing buildings," says Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

Klaus Biesenbach, Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, adds: "Following the overwhelming public response in Japan and China, further venues have now expressed interest in the exhibition tour and negotiations are currently underway with Venice and Paris, among others. With the reopening of the Stüler Building, the Berggruen Collection will return to Berlin for a second time, this time in a building with perfect technical equipment. I am grateful that we will be able to safeguard this extraordinary collection for the future in this way."

Parts of the building will be dismantled down to the shell, as it has a large maintenance backlog. The Stülerbau West was last extensively renovated in the 1950s. In addition to the urgently needed roof and façade renovation, technically difficult waterproofing measures will also be carried out on the basement masonry. The entire technical installations for museum operations, including heating, plumbing, air conditioning, ventilation, lighting and security technology, will be brought up to the latest museum standards. The museum will have more service areas on the ground floor and better wayfinding. The layout of the basement will also be optimised. In addition, the sanitary areas there will be extensively refurbished. These changes will focus heavily on accessibility, visitor-friendliness and improving the visibility of the entrance area. A continuous exhibition tour will be created on both upper floors.

In October 2018, the BBR was awarded the planning contract by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) for the basic refurbishment of the Stülerbau West. Following the preparation and approval of the design planning, implementation planning began in autumn 2021. The architectural firm merz merz GmbH & Co KG from Berlin was commissioned as the project planner. Sustainability and energy efficiency also play a central role in this complete refurbishment. The desire to install a photovoltaic system on the roof of the Stülerbau West emphasises that these issues are also becoming increasingly important for existing federal public buildings.

This complete refurbishment is an urgent and necessary measure to preserve and maintain the listed building in terms of its architectural heritage. It will also be adapted to the latest museum and exhibition requirements and its functions optimised. In addition to Charlottenburg Palace, the Bröhan Museum, the Stülerbau Ost and the Marstall with the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection, this property is one of the oldest and most important parts of Charlottenburg according to the Berlin State Monuments Office.

Further information below and at www.bbr.bund.de/presse

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

History of the Stüler buildings

Between 1851 and 1859, the architect Friedrich August Stüler erected two buildings on the Schlossstraße/ Spandauer Damm site opposite Charlottenburg Palace. The two similar head buildings with square floor plans and monopods visible from afar originally served as officers' barracks for the Gardes-du-Corps regiment.

Both Stüler buildings were badly damaged during the Second World War. They were restored in the 1950s. Since then, the buildings have not been extensively renovated.

The Stüler Building West has been home to the Berggruen Museum since 1996. To expand the Museum Berggruen, the neighbouring building at Spandauer Damm 17 and a modern, single-storey connecting building were added to the western Stülerbau between 2010 and 2013, based on a design by Berlin architects Kuehn Malvezzi.

The property was managed by the state of Berlin until 2012, when it was taken over by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation with equal ownership rights. In day-to-day operations, more and more deficiencies in the building technology and the building fabric became apparent, and the requirements for contemporary museum and exhibition operations have changed fundamentally.

Press photos for download: https://www.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de/newsroom/presse/pressebilder.html