On 12 March the Gallery Building Am Kupfergraben – completed by the practice in 2007 – was handed over by its former owners, Céline and Heiner Bastian, to the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, the organisation that runs all Berlin’s state-owned museums, including those of Museum Island. Located on the Kupfergraben canal and overlooking the recently completed James Simon Galerie and the restored Neues Museum, the building was donated to serve as a Centre for Cultural Education enlarging the programme of the cultural campus. It will be named Haus Bastian der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. To mark the change in use a book has been published by Walther Koenig, charting the building’s 12 years as an art gallery.
Image © Ute Zscharnt