The results are in, and it’s David Chipperfield taking the 2011 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture (AKA the Mies van der Rohe Award) for his elegant remake of the Neues Museum in Berlin.
The project beat competition from Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, MDMA, Bernard Tschumi and Koen van Velsen to win the prestigious prize.
Jury chair Mohsen Mostafavi said about the mid-19th century building, renovated in collaboration with Julian Harrap: “The rebuilding of the Neues Museum is an extraordinary achievement. Rarely have an architect and client succeeded in undertaking a work of such historic importance and complexity; especially one that involves both preservation and new building.”
Chipperfield added: “The reconstruction of the Neues Museum is a testament to the collaborative process undertaken in a demanding climate of public opinion. The result is evidence not only of the efforts of the professional team but of the commitment of the client and the city authorities to engage in this rigorous and articulated process.” Click here to see a video documenting Chipperfield Architects as the winning nominee.
The Mies ‘Emerging Architect Special Mention’ award goes to Ramon Bosch and Bet Capdeferro for the Collage House in Girona, Spain.
The award ceremony will take place June 20 at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, Spain.
What do you get when you cross Egyptian artifacts with the world’s deadliest war and mix them with a RIBA Stirling Prize-winning architect?
http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/18617/neues-for-mies/
The Neues Museum, that’s what. Berlin’s collecting institution of ancient art is located on Museum Island and was built by Friedrich August Stüler between 1841 and 1859, then left to ruins after severe bombing damage in the Second World War.
With the help of Julian Harrap Architects, British firm David Chipperfield Architects has invigorated the 220,660-square-foot space with a boutique sensibility, maintaining original decoration on the interior and exterior and connecting the exhibition areas with elegant, luxe materials like the white cement fused with Saxonian marble chips seen throughout.
In contrast, the exposed brick column in the center, which houses a dramatic new monolith of a stairwell, has been stripped of ornamentation in a thoughtful contrast to Chipperfield’s added materiality.
The Neues Museum re-opened in October 2009 after more than six decades of disrepair followed by a twelve-year architectural restoration. After entertaining Berlin’s creative class at our launch party last week, Architizer took a moment of reverence and dropped in to document what all the fuss is about. Exclusive images after the jump.
(L) The Neues Museum’s cool, austere Neoclassical facade behind the staircase leading to the neighboring Altes Museum; (R) View from the top of the “monumental” interior stairwell reconstructed by Chipperfield with Harrap as the restoration architect.
The back entrance, with seamless doors in dark wood and Chipperfield’s cement/marble mix that appears throughout the museum.
Connective passageways are trimmed in smooth dark bronze to contrast the rough concrete mixture trimming the galleries. The effect is one of an elegant, upscale retail boutique.
Lighting is key here, as seen in the custom fixtures filtering ambient light onto the artifacts on exhibition.
The central stair hall, whose monolithic proportions echo the ancient Egyptian motif of the museum’s collection.
Bronze meets concrete meets recycled brick meets glass in the new exhibition space carved out of the second floor atrium.
Those are the most stellar vitrines we have ever seen.
All images © Kelsey Keith for Architizer.
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