MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF BERLIN

Building the new Museum of the City of Berlin, destroying a building that has contributed to the urban and social history of the city, would be an act of violence and arrogance. An act contrary not only to dialogue with the Märkisches Museum, but at the same to the future city of Berlin.
The project takes inspiration from this premise, yet from the belief that this will be a new City Museum. A museum that can interpret and convey the story of our time and that of  the future.
The project wants to conserve and innovate. This same building Marinehaus tells us how to overcome this dialectic contradiction. The Marinehaus, because of the many upheavals of the last century - especially indoor - and the degrading transformations, can not properly be retrieved with a philological restoration. This would be foolish as well as impossible.
The project wants to conserve and innovate with the help of a historic Face Mask.
The aims are:
- To recover the main facade of Marinehaus as a Mask, as a solid backstage of the city to preserve continuity.
- To raise, a few meters behind the Mask, the new Face of the Museum, a porous front,  permeable to the eyes.
- Then to put in mutual communication - direct and visual - the City and the Museum, through the wide eyes of the Mask and the transparency of the new Face.
The new Face is a layer of perforated bronze, golden and shining, a light and plastic surface, moved and sculpted by wind, and painted by the light. A reminder that in a museum of history everything flows and is transformed ...
Tilted forward as if to establish a close relationship with the Märkisches Museum, the new Face divides the "exhibition"  from a dramatic full-height space, the foyer which becomes an area of mediation with the city and at the same time memory of Großer Festsaal im Saalbau. The foyer like a giant showcase, shows, and sends out an irresistible attraction: the great glittering casket that encloses the last century in the history of Berlin.

COMPETITION: 2008

Architect
Mario Bellini Architects

Design Team
Mario Bellini with Maurizio Di Lauro

Project Team
Maurizio Di Lauro (project architect)
Giulio Castegini (project architect)
Roberta Totaro, Stela Beiko, Cristian Russo, Giuseppe Elia, Erhan Ekizoglu, Pietro Mascagni

Local Architect:
BUSMANN + HABERER

Consultants
Structure: S.A.N. Stöffler Abraham Neujar
Mechanical implant: TGA - GTD GmbH - Gebaude - Technik - Dresden
Rendering: CREATIVHAUS
Illuminating engineering: a.g Licht