With a focus on early twentieth-century art, the New National Gallery in southwestern Berlin was designed by Mies van der Rohe and built in 1968. The building has been described as a “temple of glass” and consists of an imposing steel and glass box set in the Kulturforum—a collection of cultural buildings near Potsdamer Platz.
Mies designed the classically-inspired building to be free of supporting columns inside, creating an open and airy pavilion on street level. The museum’s galleries are below ground, and the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron recently won a bid to extend the building. Under the new plans, the old museum will add more 20th century art and will be connected to a new building via an underground tunnel.
