James Simon Galerie Berlin Opening, Museumsinsel Building, DCA German Architecture Images
James Simon Galerie Berlin Museum Island
New Public Architecture in Germany on Museum Island – design by David Chipperfield Architects
16 July 2019
James Simon Galerie Berlin Opening
Design: David Chipperfield Architects
Location: Museum Insel, Berlin, Germany

Photos © Simon Menges
Opening of James Simon Galerie Berlin Museum Island
Urban space and accessibility
Berlin?s Museum Island with its five historic museum buildings forms a complex topographical ensemble of free-standing buildings. It has no clear alignment, it is a central formation that radiates into the city in all directions and has no internal orientation. Although the buildings are arranged around the ?Kolonnadenhof? (colonnaded courtyard) at the centre of the island, the outward orientation of the buildings makes it difficult ? and in the case of the Bode-Museum and Pergamon Museum impossible ? to go from one institution to the next on the island. Although the museums are located next to each other, to walk from the main entrance of the Neues Museum into the Pergamon Museum or Bode-Museum, visitors must leave the island over the Iron Bridge and then cross back on to it via another bridge.
Nevertheless, the complex interplay of the structures in this urban space is highly attractive. Although the main façades of the museums are all structured symmetrically, their classicism does not look to claim a central persp...