The outcome reflects a complete team effort. Amazingly, although more than 10 people from Kardorff Ingenieure worked on the lighting over the duration of the project, at any given time the team consisted of no more than three people. From the beginning, architect and lighting designer collaborated to create a sequence of harmonious and fluid spaces. “The architects wanted the visitor to be aware of the changing light conditions inside and out,” says Volker von Kardorff. “The light is meant to be seen.”
The Neues Museum offers a rigor of execution and a complexity of gallery spaces, from the grand to the intimate. As Chipperfield writes in the introductory text in the museum guide, “Where each decision, whether about repair, completion or addition, was grounded by the articulation of its physical quality and meaning, where all parts of the building attempt to inflect to a singular idea; an idea not of what is lost, but what is saved.” The architectural lighting for the Neues Museum explores every possibility to add to the museumgoer’s experience of the space, and the new architecture does not hide the building’s scars. Rather it acknowledges them as artifacts, through sympathetic but bold gestures. The design process resulted in a new, unified whole that is greater than the sum of its fractured parts.
DETAILS Project The Neues Museum, Berlin
Client The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Berlin
Architect David Chipperfield Architects, London and Berlin
Restoration Architect Julian Harrap Architects, London
Project Size 19,600 square meters (total); 8,550 square meters (exhibition area)
Project Cost 200 million euros
Watts Per Square Meter 20
Photographers Achim Kleuker, Kardorff Ingenieure, and Linus Lintner
Manufacturers / Applications
Main Areas and Gallery Spaces
Erco General and exhibition lighting throughout project including track system in historic reconstructed exhibition areas
ETC Exhibition lighting in Greek CourtyardInterferenz General and exhibition lighting with custom designed fittings (linear component with fluorescent light) for exhibition areas with new ceilings
RSL General lighting for Stair Hall; staircase to basement level; exhibition lighting below platform of Egyptian Courtyard; motorized lifts in all areas for custom fittings
Selux Exhibition lighting for areas with new ceilings (spotlight component); security lighting for Greek Courtyard; lighting for circulation areas, restrooms, and administration area,
Other Areas
Bega Stairs at basement level
Bolich Maintenance lighting for Egyptian Courtyard
Derksen Projection Hypostil
Louis Poulsen Emergency staircases and administration areas
Lumatec Emergency signs throughout project
RZB Administration area
Sill Roof lighting for North Cupola
Note: There are 3,000 luminiares in the project, 100 of which have specially designed custom fittings.
