Guardian architecture critic Oliver Wainwright has identified the Neues Museum in Berlin as one of the best 25 buildings of the 21st Century. Originally designed by Friedrich August Stüler in the mid-nineteenth century, the Neues Museum was substantially damaged during the Second World War and lay as a ruin for over fifty years. Through this project David Chipperfield Architects forged a new approach which neither proposed a re-construction of the original building, nor a contemporary addition that would contrast the historic ruin. Instead it took an archaeological approach, re-completing the original volume and sequence of spaces with new building sections that create continuity with the existing structure. The building will celebrate the ten-year anniversary of its reopening in October.
Image © Ute Zscharnt for David Chipperfield Architects