Originally, the classicist building of the Alte Staatsgalerie was also the home of the Royal Art School. The building was built in 1843.[1] After being severely damaged in World War II,[2] it was rebuilt in 1945–1947 and reopened in 1958.[3]
The Neue Staatsgalerie, a controversial[4] architectural design by James Stirling, opened on March 9, 1984 on a site right next to the old building. It houses a collection of 20th-century modern art — from Pablo Picasso to Oskar Schlemmer, Joan Miró and Joseph Beuys. The building layout bears resemblance to Schinkel's Altes Museum, with a series of connected galleries around three sides of a central rotunda. However, the front of the museum is not as symmetrical as the Altes Museum and the traditional configuration is slanted with the entrance set at an angle.[5]
In 2013, the Staatsgalerie returned Virgin and Child, a 15th-century painting attributed to the Master of Flémalle (1375–1444), to the estate of Max Stern, a German-born Jewish dealer who fled the Nazis and later operated the Dominion Gallery in Montreal.[6]
^Sudjic, D. (1986). Norman Foster, Richard Rogers,James Stirling: New Directions in British Architecture . London: Thames and Hudson. p. 10
^Giebelhausen, M. (2006). "Museum Architecture: A Brief History" in A Companion to Museum Studies, Macdonald. S (ed). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, pp. 234-235.
