Am Kupfergraben 10

The gallery building stands on a canal overlooking a palace garden and a museum island, on the footprint of a building destroyed in the Second World War. The gap remained for decades until a private competition was held to complete the street façade facing the museums.

The British design team designed a contemporary building that responds to its historic context, referring to the past without copying it. At this point the city’s typical block pattern gives way to large freestanding buildings, so continuing the block façade was essential. The building matches the height of both neighbours while developing its own sculptural form.

The concrete structure is clad in brick on reconstituted stone consoles with no visible joints, using salvaged bricks from red to ochre, cleaned and laid in English bond and finished with a slurry that makes them read almost as one colour. Large windows with untreated timber frames set the composition. Inside, supporting volumes holding secondary uses organise rooms 5.5 metres high, defined by daylight and proportion rather than materials.