Altes Museum
From Archiplanet
 | Altes Museum |
| Designer | Karl Friedrich Schinkel |
| Location | Berlin, Germany |
| Date | 1823 to 1830 |
| Building Type | museum |
| Climate | temperate |
| Context | urban |
| Architectural Style | Neoclassical |
| Street Address | |
| Notes | Classical colonnaded facade. A major landmark in the develoment of museum typologies. |
| At Great Buildings | http://www.GreatBuildings.com/buildings/Altes_Museum.html |
Contents |
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[edit] Discussion
Commentary
"The facade unity achieved in the Schinkel museum derives from the expression of the vertical elements as a freestanding colonnade set into a tight frame provided by end walls, base, and roof. Termination of the facade by walls instead of columns and the use of the classical device of narrowing the end spacing allow the colonnade to be perceived as an entity, like seeing the forest before the trees. Moreover, a row of columns set in front of a wall always constitutes a figure-ground relationship. While the columns play the more readily apparent part of figures, the spaces between them can be equally effective figures."
— from Klaus Herdeg. The Decorated Diagram: Harvard Architecture and the Failure of the Bauhaus Legacy. p37.
The Creator's Words
"Our mind is not free if it is not the master of its imagination; the freedom of the mind is manifest in every victory over self, every resistance to external enticements, every elimination of an obstacle to this goal. Every moment of freedom is blessed."
"...the site required a very monumental building. Therefore I preferred one giant order rather than two individual expressions for the two main stories....The building surrounded on all sides by the Ionic entablature or the Ionic columnar hall, with Ionic pilasters at the four corners, forms a simple yet grand main structure into which the two floors are inserted in a subordinate manner."
— Karl Friedrich Schinkel. from Michael Snodin, ed. Karl Friedrich Schinkel: A Universal Man. p1, 34.
Address
Located to the east of the main station.
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[edit] References
Francis D. K. Ching. Architecture: Form, Space, and Order. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1979. ISBN 0-442-21535-5. facade and plan drawings, p31.— A nice graphic introduction to architectural ideas. Updated 1996 edition available at Amazon.com
Roger H. Clark and Michael Pause. Precedents in Architecture. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1985. repetitive to unique diagram, p168. "1.6" proportion diagram, p190.— Updated edition available at Amazon.com
James Stevens Curl. Classical Architecture: an introduction to its vocabulary and essentials, with a select glossary of terms. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992. ISBN 0-442-30896-5. NA260.C87. Facade with its great in antis arrangement of Greek Ionic columns, f2.25, p30.
Klaus Herdeg. The Decorated Diagram: Harvard Architecture and the Failure of the Bauhaus Legacy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1983. ISBN 0-262-08127-X. LC 82-24983. NA712.H47 1983. discussion p37.
Claude Mignot. Architecture of the 19th Century in Europe. New York: Rizzoli International, 1984. NA 957.M5313. ISBN 0-8478-0530-1. interior of dome, plate 22, p24.
Demetri Porphyrios. Classical Architecture the Living tradition. New York: McGraw Hill, 1992. ISBN 0-07-050478-4. LC 92-15369. NA260.P67 1992. interior color photo of vestibule, p32.
Helen Searing. New American Art Museums. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1982. ISBN 0-520-04896-2. plan drawing, p18. section and perspective drawings, p19. interior perpective, p20.
Michael Snodin, ed. Karl Friedrich Schinkel: A Universal Man. London: The Victoria and Albert Museum, 1991. ISBN 0-300-05165-4. LC 91-50586. NA1088.S3A4 1991. discussion p1, 34.
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