Sensibility for restoration

Last year in december I went to Berlin with my classmates, we filled our three days with the most interesting architectural examples of the city. The Neues Museum was the most impressive for me, being inside it was worth many lessons of restoration.


The Neues Museum was built between 1843 and 1855 according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler. It got heavily damaged  because of the Berlin bombings during World War II. In 1997, David Chipperfield started reconstruction and restoration works for this museum. There were entire missing sections to complete and heavily damaged parts to restore.


The restoration was made with great respect on different states of preservation, missing parts were recostructed as continuity of the original building ,not like an imitation of the historical but "reminding" it with its modern design. "The new reflects the lost without imitating it". Each room is worth photographing, you can find many details, layers of restoration to observe. My favourite room of the museum is South Dome which was built with recycled handmade bricks. It looks simlply elegant with marble sculptures.


Chipperfield’s approach to design is minimalist but frankly minimalist, far from the restoration Tadao Ando did in Palazzo Grassi.  You can make a virtual tour in the museum in the official site here