Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin by Iliosbooks

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INTERNATIONAL ARCHITECTURE SERIES 1 - mies van der rohe neue nationalgalerie in berlin1962-1968

the author of capters n.1,9,10,11 and all drawings is Mario Ferrari. the author of chapters 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 is Laura Pavia.

laura pavia, mario ferrari

1st edition: october 2013 this book is been created and edited by Ilios, an indipendent Cultural Association whose aim is to spread the knowledge of architecture and it has been printed either with the help of the sponsors and with the funds of the Association. No public money have been spent.

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This research has partially been financed by “Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Dipartimento delle Culture Europee del Mediterraneo: Architettura, Ambiente, Patrimoni Culturali (DiCEM)”

no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trasmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of ilios cultural association that is the only owner of the rights.

isbn 978-88-908024-2-3

main sponsor for this issue: Lago S.p.A. Via dell’Artigianato II n.21 35010 Villa del Conte Padova, Italy ph +39 049 599 4299 fax +39 049 599 4191 www.lago.it lago@lago.it

index 9.

the measure of architecture

the late mies

the aesthetics of the invisible

ludwig mies van der rohe

the official mandate of the berlin senate

the kulturforum

timeline 130

version and variations of the project

bibliography 132

conception of the neue nationalgalerie

photo credits 133

technology and construction process

testo in italiano 134

proportions and rules 11. design studies

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10. geometry,

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1. View of the north-west entrance to the podium some days after the Neue Nationalgalerie opening

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1. THE LATE MIES

The Neue Nationalgalerie, designed by Mies Van der Rohe, is one of the few modern buildings in Berlin. The city has undergone a starling number of changes to its urban structure from the 1930s to the present day. Despite significant input from international architectural styles, the city still does not seem to have managed to find a well-defined character, language and image. The fall of the wall in 1989 connected two urban areas made alien to each other by nearly fifty years of separation. Like two liquids, two parts of the city were poured into a glass, but they have failed to mix properly and have remained separate. Reinstating one character throughout the city has proven impossible. The museum is located in one of these areas. Built thirty years before the fall of the wall, the gallery is situated in the ex-West sector in Kemper Platz, on Potsdammer Strasse, an important thoroughfare connecting the Charlottenburg and Mitte districts via the Tiegarten park. The area –still riddled with unresolved problems– was the subject of detailed urban studies, which resulted in the demarcation of the area known as the “kulturforum” in 1960. This space was to become the most important cultural centre in West Berlin, the “epitome of modernist urbanism in which objects swim 1 in space”. Its main function was to replace the cultural centres that had been lost to the other side of the wall, the Eastern sector. Various change of plans to the road infrastructure resulted in the parts of the project being abandoned, leaving the area in its current condition. In spite of sizeable commitments from different governments - leading to the construction of several important buildings such as the Philarmonie designed by Hans Sharoun and the Neue Nationalgalerie designed by Mies Van der Rohe - the site does not present an objective and recognisable image of 1. cf. D.Sudjic “Edifice complex: how the rich and powerfulshape the world, The Penguin Press, New York, 2005”

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6. View of the passage between the columns and the glazed exhibition hall

« We reject

Every esthetic speculations Every doctrine And every formalism The art of building is the will of our time translated into space Living. Changing. New. Not yesterday not tomorrow only today can be formed. Only this practice of building gives form Create the form from the nature of the task with the means of our time. That is our task »

LMvdR, Bürohaus, in “G”, (July 1923), n. 1, p. 3.

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2. THE AESTHETICS OF THE INVISIBLE

Considered with Le Corbusier as one of the most eminent exponents of the Modernist Movement, the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe sits astride two very different worlds, very remote from each other: on one hand, there is the Europe of modern conflict and artistic avant-garde, and on the other, the America of skyscrapers and mass production. It was precisely on this “pile of aesthetic debris” 8 to which Europe was reduced following World War I that Mies van der Rohe established a personal and modern vision of architecture, consisting of simple forms endowed with genuine significance. A vision which has always dealt more with essential nature than with appearance makes us wonder if there is any sense in talking about the aesthetics of the architecture of Mies van der Rohe. If we refer to the sole formal aspects of his work, by definition anti-aesthetic, the answer is probably no: the declarations of the 1923 manifesto on the rejection of “all aesthetic conjecture”, “doctrine” and “formalism”9 and of “style” and “form as an end in itself”10 clearly demonstrate the intention of the architect to deal more with problems of construction than with problems of form. Instead, the reasons behind, and the profound meaning of the buildings created by Mies van der Rohe could be discussed. Therefore, Miesian aesthetics appears to us not as a celebration of what is seen, but as a disclosure of what is unseen of the invisible that Mies van der Rohe renders visible through the oder of the structure and the clarity of the construction. The ideals of truth, order and beauty he pursues in all his work, are not actually concepts derived from the world of art, deduced by directly contemplating form in works, as much as concepts of a philosophical nature, only comprehensible through a reflection 8. V. Pizzigoni (edited by), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Gli scritti e le parole, Einaudi, Turin 2010, ch. V. Compiti risolti. Una sfida alla nostra edilizia (1923), p.12. 9. V. Pizzigoni, ibid., ch. II. Edificio per uffici (1923), p. 5. 10. V. Pizzigoni, ibid., ch. IV. Costruire (1923), p. 8.

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22. Mies van der Rohe controls the lift of the steel roof. 5th april 1967

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3. LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE

Maria Ludwig Michael Mies was born on 27 March 1886 in Aachen by Michael Mies Rohe and Amalie Rohe. Descendant of an ancient family of stonemasons 28, he works since he was a child in the marble company of his father. In the years between 1896 and 1905 he studies to obtain technical and professional skills and acquires practical experience as an apprentice and designer of stuccos for some local builders and architects. In 1905 he moves to Berlin, where he works until 1907 in the studio of Bruno Paul, specializing in the design of furniture. In 1906 he realizes his first work, Riehl House, for the philosophy professor Aloïs Riehl, who introduces him to the most important industrialists and intellectuals of the city. Mies van der Rohe becomes a member of the Peter Behrens’ studio in 1908, where he works on the project for the Turbine Factory of the AEG Company (1909) in Berlin being introduced to the architecture of K. F. Schinkel. Perls House (1910-11) is the first of a series of houses built according to the Schinkel style, including Kröller-Müller House (1912) at The Hague in the Netherlands, where Mies van der Rohe knows the work of Peter Hendrik Berlage. In Schinkel, in fact, Mies van der Rohe “had found authenticity and sense of measure, proportion and rhythm” 29, while he learns from Behrens the concept of “great shape” and from Berlage that of “construction”.30

28. It was stated by Mies van der Rohe in a manuscript for a conference held the 9th of June 1924 when, precisely becouse he is an handscraft's son, he claims to be skilled in the handscraft arts, an "old and absolete form of production" that he considers surpassed by the global industrial production. V. Pizzigoni, ibid., ch. VIII. Quello che intendiamo per formazione elementare (1924), p. 20. 29. W. Blaser, Il design di Mies van der Rohe, Electa, Turin 1980, p. 10. 30. It was stated by Mies van der Rohe in an interview with John Peter in 1955, entitled “Conversation Regarding the future of architecture”. Cf. V. Pizzigoni, ibid., ch. LIII. Il futuro dell’architettura (1955), pp. 152-160.

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24. Werner DĂźttman

25. Rolf Schwedler

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4. THE OFFICIAL MANDATE OF THE BERLIN SENATE

The Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin was officially inaugurated on 15 September 1968.32 In December the Italian architect Bruno Zevi writes about the charge committed to Mies Van der Rohe: “Berlin, as is natural, has a deep sense of guilt towards the many artists who were forced to leave the country. Planning the cultural center of Kemperplatz, the city assigned the Philharmonie to Hans Scharoun, a symbol of the internal resistance, the one operating in Germany, and the Gallery to Mies”.33 Indeed, beyond the desire to reconnect with the tradition of the Weimar Republic and to pay in some way the debt with its recent past, choosing to entrust a project to a German architect who emigrated during the war, the city of Berlin was planning since 1960 to acquire a representative work of one of the greatest architects of the Twentieth century, perhaps also demonstrating their interest in the effort to gain a prominent role in the international cultural debate of the Modern Movement in those years. The choice falls on Mies van der Rohe, whose fame, achieved overseas, consecrated him among the masters of modern in architecture and made him one of the best known and most influential figures of twentieth century. With the support of Werner Düttmann, head of the Department of Planning and Construction of the city, the Senator for Construction and Housing Rolf Schwedler invites several times Mies van der Rohe to design a building for the city of Berlin, but his efforts are vain, until the architect become convinced in the spring of 1961.34

32. S. Hildebrand, Design and construction of the New National Gallery. The execution of the project, in Mies van der Rohes Neue Nationalgalerie in Mies van der Rohe’s New National Gallery in Berlin, Vice Versa Verlag, Berlino 1995, p. 19. 33. B. Zevi, La Galleria berlinese di Mies, 29 dicembre 1968 - Ellenismo sull’orlo dell’accademia n. 743, in Cronache di Architettura, Laterza, Rome-Bari 1970, vol. VII, p. 213. 34. S. Hildebrand, Op. cit., p. 10.

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mies van der rohe's neue nationalgalerie in berlin 1962-1968

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5. THE KULTURFORUM

The Neue nationalgalerie is located to the south of the Tiergarten park, in an urban area in the district Tiergarten of Berlin. Currently the museum, which faces the Church of St. Matthew (1844-46) of Sigismundstrasse, is part of a set of important cultural buildings built since 1960: the Philharmonic (1960-1963), the New Library of State (1967-1976), the Institute of State for Musical Research and the Museum of Musical Instruments (1979-1984), the Museum of Applied Arts (1978-1985) and the Chamber Music Hall (1984-1987). Distant and solitary in a complex, today called Kulturforum, and apparently designed in the absence of a general plan of the area, the buildings seem to have no relation with the context in which they are located, giving a fragmentary and heterogeneus image of the area. Although presenting problems related to the urban structure, the area has been the subject of numerous attempts over time to give order and development to a part of the city severely damaged by World War II bombing, after which the zone, largely destroyed and waiting for reconstruction, has been emptied of its functions, losing its original identity of urban residential neighborhood. The first plan for the city after the war is the Plan of the “Berliner Collective” (Kollektivplan), presented in 1946 by a planning team led by German architect Hans Scharoun, then commissioner for the program of the city’s reconstruction. This plan provided not only the urban restructuration of the entire capital, but also the demolition of the monuments survived the bombings, to achieve an orthogonal grid oriented along the river and organized on the basis of the functional zoning’s criterion, in which the guiding principle of the new idea of the city would have been the concept of “urban landscape” (Stadtlandschaft). 31

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35. Mies van der Rohe's sketch for the Museum of XXth century

36. Mies van der Rohe Gene Summers

37. Dirk Lohan

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6. VERSIONS AND VARIATIONS OF THE PROJECT

Only a single preliminary sketch of the Neue Nationalgalerie’s project is still preserved today. A few gestures characterized by an essential and undefined trait, express an accomplished idea of architecture in which are already evident the basic elements of design and construction: “That skinny design contains simultaneously: the theme, the building, the evocation”.41 The final version of the project dates back to the spring of 1963 and offers the image of a building that seems to be the natural development of the idea contained in that sketch: a huge coverage coffered steel, dominating an underneath diaphanous hall for temporary exhibitions bounded by glass panels, supported by eight cruciform pillars fixed on a granite basement that houses the museum’s permanent collection and various services. Mies van der Rohe conceives for the city of Berlin a building that is amazing not only for the architectural and urban value of the design, but above all because the Neue Nationalgalerie represents to him one of the most important tasks he received at homeland -maybe the most important at all- and because in that project he glimpses the possibility to verify and refine, once again after the American realizations, his particular vision of the architecture of great buildings in an almost total absence of design constraints by his client. It’s the same architect who says it in an interview in Berlin in 1964, the year in which he stays in the city for the project of the Neue Nationalgalerie, in a room at the Hilton hotel, overlooking the neighbourhood to the south of the Tiergarten, future seat of the museum: “Of course I am honored to return to build here, especially because here you can do 41. R. Capozzi, Le architettura ad aula: il paradigma Mies van der Rohe, Clean, Neaples 2011, p. 110.

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43. Model of the "Kulturforum" with the final version of the Neue Nationalgalerie. Stiched on the wall, a foto of the construction yard. 2nd April 1968

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7. THE CONCEPTION OF THE NEUE NATIONALGALERIE

Last of the buildings built by Mies van der Rohe, magnificent steel and glass temple of modern architecture defined as “the Parthenon of the XX century” 50, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin is the epilogue of a long theoretical and experimental research that sums up all the themes of his projects and works and passes through the entire course of his professional and human experience. Quiet and lonely monolith, living of distance relationships with the surrounding buildings of the “Kulturforum”, it dives into the chaos of the city anchoring itself to the ground and then withdrawing with sudden escapes to other spaces and other dimensions51, affirming its enigmatic presence through the absolute purity of the architectural object, which introjects the “void” and speaks the language of the absence of image52 and that of the silence. Through references to the classic themes of Greek temple and of Pantheon, of Roman basilica and of hall as a collective place, denounced by the formal neatness of the building and by the attention to the issue of proportions, besides by the compositional rigor that recalls the Schinkel’s classicism, Mies van der Rohe formulates a new concept of exhibition space, which abandons the traditional typological schemes of the nineteenth-century museum of J. N. L. Durand, but also the most contemporary of F. L. Wright and Le Corbusier53, in favor of a form that embraces within it “life”54 and that he identifies in the Hall, the shape of the community.

50. F. Dal Co, Mies van der Rohe, grandezza della modernità in Casabella, LXV (2001), n. 692, p. 4. 51. Mies has always claimed to believe in the industrial method, meant not as an end but as a way to achieve a "spiritual purpose": "We want to rest the feet firmly on the ground, but we want to achieve the clouds with the head." Cf. V. Pizzigoni, Op.cit., ch VIII. Quello che intendiamo per formazione elementare (1924), p. 24. 52. M. Tafuri, F. Dal Co, Architettura contemporanea, Electa, Milan 1976, p. 307. 53. R. Capozzi, Op. cit. p 110.

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to float in the great emptiness of the hall, probably more suitable for the exhibition of large-scale sculptures, and the copious natural light, that floods the hall both upper and lower, appeared unsuitable to the presentation of works of art, generally requiring an artificial light and a more intimate and meditative space.61 Mies van der Rohe had to accept against his will the demand to put the curtains in front of the exterior glass walls due to the functional needs of the building, but cared little about those who accused him of having created a building that was poorly suited to the characteristics of the site, relegating the museum in the basement, and of having preferred an ideal abstract form, already tested in previous projects, to a solid construction and with a well-defined functional program. To them Mies van der Rohe, who had always believed in the concept of universality and functional versatility, simply replied with the impenetrable silence of his building, a wonderful synthesis of his aesthetic ideal of real architecture and absolute beauty. L.P.

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61. R. Pauli, The New National Gallery as a center for enjoiment of art. The inaugural exhibition in 1968, in Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Vice Versa Verlag, Berlino 1995, pp. 78-79.

opposite page: 47. Inner view of the sculpture garden. 48. View from the cloackroom towards the atrium. 49. View of the lower hall with the ticket desk. 50. The cafĂ¨ lounge. 51 The big exhibition room adjacent to the sculpture garden. 52. The lower hall, on the left the bookshop.

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45. The opening event: the Piet Mondrian's exhibition, 15 september 1968. The "sculpture garden". The relations between the two levels of the building are clear.

46. The opening event: the Piet Mondrian's exhibition, 15 september 1968. Main exhibition hall. As criticised by many people, the monumental space of the hall is in contrast with the artworks. At the bottom of the hall the curtains, disapproved by Mies, are visible.

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53. The columns and the steel roof on the Potsdammerstrasse

Building

« We know no formal problems, only building problems.

Form is not the goal but the result of our work. There is no form in itself. The truly formed thing is conditioned, grown together with the task. Indeed, it is the most elemental expression. The form as goal is formalism; and we reject that. Nor do we strive for a style. Our task is precisely to liberate building activity from the aesthetic speculation of developers and to make it once again the only thing it should be, namely building »

LMvdR, Bauen, in “G”, I (september 1923), n. 2, p. 1.

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8. TECHNOLOGY AND CONSTRUCTIVE PROCESS

In 1923, Mies van der Rohe published the article entitled, Bauen (Building) in the German magazine, G. Zeitschrift für elementare Gestaltung. In the first part of this article, in the form of a manifesto, he declares that he does not acknowledge formal problems, but only “problems in construction”, declaring that he does not want to pursue “form as an end in itself”, nor to strive after a particular style, but to “liberate building activity from the aesthetic speculation of developers and to make it once again the only thing it should be, namely building".62 The theme of construction is an element which consistently runs right through all Miesian architectural experimentation. The direct education on the construction sites of his native city, the deep knowledge of Greek and mediaeval architecture, the devoted study of the work of K. F. Schinkel and H. P. Berlage, fostered from the beginning in Mies van der Rohe the desire to release the process of construction from every formalism and style, to give new force to the act of construction, which for Mies van der Rohe would always be an "art of construction" (baukunst). The steel and glass buildings which he produced in the United States, more than any of his other work, interpreted this desire: in them Mies van der Rohe transfers the potential aesthetic of a new architecture, in which the clear and essential construction tends only to express and translate into space the will of the era and the values of every age.63 In fact, in his work, construction is never just technical, but “adapts itself to the aims of the architecture”, as in classical antiquity, where the form of the building always reflects the elements of construction 62. L. Mies van der Rohe, Bauen, in “G”, (september 1923), n. 2, p. 1. 63. J. L. Cohen, Op.cit., p. 5.

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65 a, b, c, d. Still frames of the lifting operations 5th april 1967

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mies van der rohe's neue nationalgalerie in berlin 1962-1968

It was agreed that nobody would speak more than five minutes. What humbug it was! I want to thank the man who worked the steel, and those who did the concrete. And when the great roof raised itself up, I was amazed »

Witness of Mies's speech during the simple cerimony for the lift of the roof (from a personal communication between Julius Poesner and Franz Schulze, June 24 1982)

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66. Model of the Neue Nationalgalerie

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10. GEOMETRY, PROPORTIONS AND RULES IN THE DESIGN OF THE BUILDING

Why, more than forty-five years after its opening, does the Neue Nationalgalerie remain the most modern building in Berlin, a building in front of which we are overcome with emotions and thoughts?

The answer is simple: because Mies van der Rohe applied the classical principles of architectural composition. The aim of any type of architecture is to survive the course of time. He designed all of his work with this in mind. In his career Mies van der Rohe sought, more than anyone else – even at the cost of functional aspects of the building – a means of constructing a building on the principles of “truthness”, selecting classical elements not for their form but for their rules. In this chapter I would like to explain these rules and actions, through which the architect studied the composition of his masterpiece. The analysis the Neue Nationalgalerie confirms Ludwig van der Rohe’s ability to control the whole compositional process through clear rules that – like the whole process of construction, which as told in previous chapters, is based on single elements whose composition generates the architectural system – create a geometric system based on a single element: the module of 1.20 metres, a measure that rules the compositional genesis.

The plan of the museum originates from a geometric operation of translation, depicted in drawing I. A square with side “a” measuring 94.20 metres (78.5 modules) is translated for three times. The first move, which is vertical, amounts to factor “b” equalling 21 metres (17.5 modules). This operation produces a slide that generates the “sculpture garden”. The sum of the second vertical translation “c” (15.60 metres that is 13 modules) and of the 69

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mies van der rohe's neue nationalgalerie in berlin 1962-1968

68. North-east corner. Detail of the water drainage canal made of a single piece of stone. Is clear the effort to make shure that all the parts join in a modular scheme ruled by the 1.2 meters measure 69. South-east stairs and bicycle ramps. Detail. 70. Main entrance to the podium level, left side. The engraving 12 centimeter deep create the illusion that the huge stone block floats on the podium.

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71. Main entrance to the podium level, right side. The steps of the stairs come out of the border of the podium that seems to "flow out".

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72. North-west stairs to the podium. The handrail has been posed in a second time

73. View of the podium along the Potsdammer Strasse, towards the new Potsdammerplatz

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mies van der rohe's neue nationalgalerie in berlin 1962-1968

11. DESIGN STUDIES

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M.F.

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IX - X. Detailed basement plan

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XIX - XXI. East side elevations

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XXXVI. View of the stair and of part of the sculpture garden from Sigismund Strasse

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XL. Inner view of the museum in the basement, left: the cafĂ¨, far: the locker room, behind: the entrance hall

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XLIV. Perspective section on the halls (upper and lower one), on the graphic cabinet and on the exhibition rooms

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TIMELINE, BIBLIOGRAPHY AND ITALIAN TEXT

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TESTO IN ITALIANO 1. L'ULTIMO MIES

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La Neue Nationalgalerie di Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe è uno dei pochi edifici moderni in una Berlino che dagli anni trenta ad oggi, ha subito un’impressionante serie di variazioni nella struttura urbana. Nonostante il grande impegno dell’architettura internazionale, la città sembra non essere riuscita, ancora oggi, a trovare un carattere, un linguaggio, un’immagine definita. La caduta del muro nel 1989, ha messo in comunicazione due lembi urbani che, quasi cinquant’anni di separazione, avevano reso estranei. Come due fluidi, queste due parti di città si sono mescolate ma sono riuscite a compenetrarsi, restando separate. Non è stato possibile restituire alla città un carattere unitario. Il museo si trova in uno di questi lembi. Nato trent’anni prima della caduta del muro, esso si trova nel ex settore Ovest a Kemper Platz, lungo la Potsdammer Strasse, importante arteria che, costeggiando il parco del Tiegarten, collega i quartieri di Charlottenburg e Mitte. L’area, che ancora oggi presenta dei forti caratteri di irresolutezza, è stata oggetto di approfonditi studi urbanistici sfociati, nel 1960, nella delimitazione di un’area denominata “kulturforum”. Qui avrebbe visto la luce il più importante polo culturale di Berlino Ovest “epitome di un’urbanistica modernista in cui gli oggetti nuotano nello spazio”.1 La sua funzione principale avrebbe dovuto essere quella di rimpiazzare i poli culturali rimasti al di là del muro, nel settore est. Il progetto subì diverse modifiche nel sistema delle infrastrutture viarie che portò ad alcune rinunce che lasciarono l’area nelle condizioni in cui è ancora oggi. Nonostante tutto l’impegno profuso dalle diverse Amministrazioni -che condusse alla costruzione di alcuni importanti edifici quali la Philarmonie di Hans Scharoun e la Neue Nationalgalerie di Mies Van der Rohe- il sito non offre di sé un’immagine riconoscibile ed oggettiva. Le importanti trasformazioni che, negli ultimi venti anni hanno interessato l’area della Potsdammerplatz hanno potuto solo lambire l’area, lasciandola la fuori dalla crescita caotica che, solo apparentemente, sembra aver risolto questo settore urbano. In questo panorama, confuso ed irrisolto, riesce davvero difficile spiegarsi perché all’edificio-museo - che rappresenta il più importante modello dell’architettura moderna mondiale ma al contempo incorpora nella sua sostanza, austera e oscura, i principi della architettura classica - sembra calzare perfettamente la definizione che Adolf Loos dà dell’architettura: se in un bosco troviamo un tumulo, lungo sei piedi e largo tre, disposto con la pala a forma di piramide, ci facciamo seri e qualcosa dice dentro di noi: qui è sepolto qualcuno. Questa è architettura 2

E' questa la sensazione che si prova incontrando la Neue Nationalgalerie nel magma urbano disomogeneo della capitale tedesca: ci si fa seri e si pensa: “questa è architettura”. Trasponendo la definizione di Loos, è possibile spiegare perché, dinnanzi ad essa, noi sentiamo di essere al cospetto di un edificio moderno pienamente classico. Rispondendo alla definizione di Adolf Loos, la Neue Nationalgalerie appartiene al novero di architetture che fanno della chiarezza e della disciplina un fondamento. Per giungere a questo risultato Mies van der Rohe impiega tutta la vita. Molti ritengono questa sua ultima opera manierista e forse per questo è spesso posta in secondo piano rispetto ad altri progetti nei quali egli dimostra la capacità di innovatore riuscendo a scomporre l’architettura in piani, concatenando spazi chiusi ed aperti, reinterpretando sostanzialmente il rapporto con lo spazio esterno ed applicando il famoso motto “less is more”. Queste opinioni, dicevo, derivano probabilmente dalla collocazione cronologica del museo: concepito e costruito tra il 1962 e il 1968, nel pieno della “guerra fredda”, il museo è il compimento del percorso che Mies van der Rohe aveva intrapreso intorno al progetto degli edifici ad aula. Negli anni tra il 1940 ed il 1950 erano stati numerosi gli esperimenti condotti su questo tema: la Convention Hall di Chicago rappresenta forse il caso più estremo. Nell’arco di questo ventennio Il continuo tentativo di elevare la struttura al ruolo di decoro ha avvicinato la tecnica compositiva miesiana a quella impiegata nell’età classica quando i partiti architettonici coincidevano con quelli strutturali con il risultato di riuscire a parlare attraverso la struttura, le regole e le deroghe.

Si dice che Philip Johnson, che nel 1933 caldeggiò il nome di Mies van der Rohe per la vittoria del concorso della Reichsbank (falsamente ipotizzando alcune affermazioni dell’architetto tedesco in favore del regime nazista salvo poi tacciarlo di nazismo negli anni sessanta), si racconta di un incarico di “architetto associato” offerto dallo stesso Mies van der Rohe a Johnson per il progetto della torre della famiglia Seagram a New York nel 1957 o della freddezza ostentata durante un incontro con la vedova Kennedy per la scelta dell’autore del 3 memoriale per il defunto Presidente (incarico poi assegnato all’architetto giapponese Ieoh Ming Pei) . L'architetto tedesco non nutriva affatto simpatie naziste ma era disposto a fare qualsiasi cosa pur di progettare o, nel caso del Kennedy Memorial, di non progettare la sua architettura. Perché secondo lui non era l’architettura a servire il potere ma il potere a servire l’architettura. La politica era solo un mezzo per fare architettura, per studiare e perfezionare l’uso dei pochi elementi che Mies van der Rohe riteneva cruciali perché tecnica e spazio

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mies van der rohe's neue nationalgalerie in berlin 1962-1968

costruissero l’immagine del tempio laico. Questo percorso implica un'ascesa costante, rinnega l’insuccesso e vede nel progetto precedente qualcosa di meno riuscito di quello più recente. Ogni suo edificio perde qualcosa rispetto al precedente senza però impoverirsi. Alcuni di essi contribuiscono al processo di perfezionamento. Molti di questi, pur restando solo sulla carta, ci consegnano una serie di studi eccezionali che testimoniano un’ulteriore prerogativa di Mies van der Rohe: la necessità costante di studiare lo spazio dell’edificio ricorrendo anche a strumenti accessori come il fotomontaggio. In un'epoca in cui non era ancora presente il computer e tutte le sue capacità immaginifiche, Mies van der Rohe ricorre a questa tecnica, non con lo scopo di indagare la “forma” dell’edificio, bensì di comprenderne la spazialità interna, il ruolo delle parti, delle membrature strutturali, il rapporto con i suoi abitanti e con l’ambiente circostante. Questo processo compositivo, presente in quasi tutte le sue opere si fa evidente in due in particolare: la Convention Hall di Chicago (1957) e la Neue Nationalgalerie di Berlino. Nell’immensa sala statunitense destinata ad importanti eventi pubblici, il fotomontaggio riduce le componenti a tre: la copertura reticolare senza appoggi, il bordo marmoreo che, rinunciando a dichiarare la propria scala (si tratta di stampe ritagliate da cataloghi), integra e nasconde la struttura e la folla anch’essa parte della simulazione. Parlando di questo progetto dice:

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"Ho indagato molte soluzioni e differenti tipi di edifici. Solo alcune si sono rivelate adatte. Mi piacerebbe partire dalla Convention Hall di Chicago. Si tratta di un edificio enorme, 722 per 620 piedi. Mi piacerebbe vederla realizzata. Ne conosco i disegni e l'idea alla base della sua concezione. Però, nei fatti, la realtà impone una dimensione massima oltre la quale non posso andare. Prendete le piramidi egizie e costruitele con un'altezza di soli 15 piedi. Non saranno più niente. La differenza è tutta in questa dimensione enorme" 4

Le dimensioni contano, dice Mies van der Rohe, e sembra di sentire Etienne Louis Boullée parlare del ruolo della massa e della luce nei suoi studi sul concetto di sublime in architettura. Nel museo tedesco il fotomontaggio privilegia la città: la sua presenza invade il grande vuoto della sala e sembra volerne annichilire la struttura. Una ricerca dello (e sullo) spazio è dunque l’ultima sfida di Mies van der Rohe prima di consacrare alla storia il suo lavoro. Qui tutto sfiora l’ossessione: dall’immagine apparentemente avulsa alla città, all’uso esasperato della misura che rende possibile addirittura disegnare l’edificio senza l’ausilio di strumenti di misurazione, contando solo i moduli geometrici (come effettivamente ho fatto). Qui tutto è nuovo, ad una apparente semplicità formale fa riscontro una estrema complessità realizzativa: gli ingegneri strutturali Dienst & Richter, trovandosi di fronte ad una struttura in acciaio che non aveva precedenti, furono costretti a ricorrere ai primi enormi computer, basandosi su modelli analoghi usati per i grandi ponti in metallo. Qui l’architettura è allo stato puro, l’ornamento coincide con il decoro e l’organismo è al servizio dello spazio che, a sua volta, è al servizio della città. Tutti gli elementi che compongono l'edificio sono molto semplici: dalla copertura, un gaticcio di lastre di acciaio saldate singolarmente. (e non, come sembrerebbe, costruita con profili industriali prefabbricati), al basamento rivestito da lastre in granito che fanno riferimento alla misura di 1 2 metri. La tecnica si combina con la tradizione: le colonne presentano l'éntasi e la copertura presenta una curvatura imposta per correggere i difetti prospettici. Si tratta delle stesse tecniche usate nella costruzione dei templi dell'antica Grecia. Sono questi gli elementi che contribuiscono non solo alla modernità ma anche all'attualità della Neue Nationalgalerie che, dal 1968 ad oggi ha svolto la sua funzione senza alcun adeguamento. Solo nel 2015, ben quarantasette anni dopo la sua inaugurazione, è previsto il suo primo restauro che la vedrà chiusa per tre anni.

L’architetto giapponese Kengo Kuma in un suo saggio sulla teoria dell’architettura 5, critica Mies van der Rohe e Le Corbusier accusati di aver contribuito, con la complicità di Philips Johnson (nella sua qualità di direttore del settore architettura del MOMA di New York) alla diffusione del concetto di “edificio-oggetto”, a discapito del “soggetto” ovvero del fruitore. Sostando nella sala superiore della Neue Nationalgalerie, sembra che il saggio di Kuma, seppur affascinante, non abbia completamente centrato il problema. L’edificio di Mies van der Rohe non s’impone come oggetto (al punto di collocare il museo vero e proprio in un basamento muto) ma, scegliendo una sala completamente vetrata ed una riduzione degli elementi strutturali, si lascia attraversare dallo sguardo tentando quasi di annullarsi (proprio come vorrebbe Kuma). Le opere d’arte, appese al soffitto, sarebbero state osservate nella loro interazione con la natura circostante che, a sua volta, avrebbe offerto una “contro-immagine” alle opere esposte. Questo spazio, che Ludwig Mies van der Rohe definisce “universale”, è la materializzazione del suo desiderio, già espresso in un intervista del 1958 sulla Farnsworth house:

"Riunire natura, abitazione e uomo in un'unità più elevata. La natura, osservata attraverso le pareti vetrate della Casa Farnsworth, ha un significato più profondo rispetto alla sua osservazione diretta. In tal modo la natura ha maggiore espressione - diventa parte dell'assieme" 6 Lo spazio espositivo dunque è solo un pretesto che Mies van der Rohe usa per annullare lo spazio architettonico interno a favore di quello esterno. Il processo architettonico sembra ignorare le questioni funzionali, esponendo spesso l’architetto a critiche. E’ celebre la sua frase:

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74. View of the main entrance to the upper exhibition hall

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