Altes Museum

Altes Museum

The Altes Museum is located in Berlin, Germany built between 1823 and 1830, it was  designed by an architect named Karl Friedrich Schinkel, "the site required a very monumental building. Therefore I preferred one giant order rather than two individual expressions for the two main stories....The building surrounded on all sides by the Ionic entablature or the Ionic columnar hall, with Ionic pilasters at the four corners, forms a simple yet grand main structure into which the two floors are inserted in a subordinate manner”. The building was originally built as a place for the Prussian royal family (or just Berlin in general) to store their art collection but served as a contemporary art museum under the GDR (German Democratic Republic) as well. The building became a key example in the development of museum typologies. Before this building came about, the architectural elements in this structure were only really used (reserved for) buildings of more importance such as, governmental buildings and Stately buildings. These architectural elements are, monumental ionic columns, grand stair cases leading to the entrance of the building, and the wide stretch of the atrium. These elements were taken from ancient Greek and Roman architecture. Meaning, this building is a prime example of Neoclassical architecture. The Neoclassical movement in the architectural field took these old traditional structures from ancient structures (mostly Greece and the Roman Empire) and applied them to building designs in a more current period. The building is very ordered structurally in both exterior facade design and interior design, it f has a very dominant vertical presence on its facade, tightly organized by the column elements. The columns are set in a frame where the spaces between the columns are scaled in a way that they are just as important to the facade as the columns themselves, coming off as very much referenced to the Pantheon in Rome. The architect Schinkel pursued an idea of opening the museum up to the public for educational purposes. This helped the ideas of Neoclassical architecture develop even further. The Neoclassical architecture movement was (as stated before) usually reserved for buildings of higher purpose and status. The Altes Museum helped spread these architectural ideas into different typologies of buildings, which really revived the ancient architectural masterpieces because it was now having an effect on the development of other building types. The museum itself was directly across the garden of the Royal Palace (which was destroyed after the second world war). The museum was almost entirely destroyed during the war when a tank exploded outside and the museum fell victim to tragic fire and needed close to 60 years to restore the architecture of the building. What I find interesting is that the building directly opposite was a residence of royalty. Both buildings were damaged in the world wars (the museum was almost destroyed entirely) and the building chosen to be restored was the museum. This shows how important it was to the Neoclassical movement and its because of its importance that its ideas and elements helped spread the Neoclassical movement into buildings other than higher statuses.

“Altes Museum.” Altes Museum | Architectuul, architectuul.com/architecture/altes-museum.

“Altes Museum by Karl Friedrich Schinkel at GreatBuildings.” GreatBuildings, www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/altes_museum.html.