museum des 20ten jahrhunderts
The now created volume is than broken into six fragments, connected through a common base. The three western fragments house the individual public functions: cafe, restaurant, shop, library and tourist information, while the three eastern ones are linked to each other and feature the lobby, educational facilities and workshops, alongside exhibition spaces. The exhibition is contiued in the -1 floor, where it is connected to the New National Gallery.
The interior of each of the volumes is dominated by the play of the different facades: towards the outside of the museum these are enclosed, whilst towards the center, where the stone is 'broken' it is a transluzent media facade.
In the middle of each volume is a core, around which the more active spaces revolve.
The building itself starts from a rectangular shield towards the Potsdamer Strasse. In a first step one of those corners is rotated to form an irregular shape, that allows to preserve the existing trees.
Through these steps three outside spaces are created: on the south a small area connects the New National Gallery and our building, on the north a narrowed corridor is clearer framed as before, and serves as entrance to the Kulturform, and on the western side a plaza is created, with the focal point clearly being the existing church.
The Kulturforum in Berlin is the 'battlefield' of two different urban concepts - on one hand the dated idea of an open urban landscape, on the other side the concept of a city formed by perimeter blocks and clear spacial edges. A central task of this competition is to link those competitors to one another.
The museum is forming a sequence, as it seemingly presents itself as another solitary building, breaking up towards the west, to transform the area into a contemporary concept of urban space: a sequence of narrow and wide spaces.