The James Simon Galerie, which serves as the new entrance building to Berlin’s Museum Island, is nearly complete. On 13 December, the building will officially be handed over to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Over the coming months the interiors will be fitted out with the building set to open to the public in summer 2019.
As the new gateway to Museum Island, the James Simon Galerie is designed to receive large numbers of visitors, housing all the facilities required by a contemporary museum. These include an auditorium and temporary exhibition spaces. As well as supplementing the museological programme, the James Simon Galerie reorganises urban relations and accessibility within Museum Island. Together with the ‘Archaeological Promenade’, which will link four museums at basement level, it forms the backbone of the masterplan that was developed by the practice in 1999 and adopted as the basis for all further planning on Museum Island.
Image © Ute Zscharnt