Staging art
Museum architecture has become an attraction for lovers of fine buildings.
The appropriate framework has always been important, but in recent years museum architecture has risen to new heights. Today, people often go to a museum because they want to view the building – the exhibition becomes a pleasant addition. Among the most lionized architects is Britain’s Norman Foster (photograph above), who recently added a new golden extension to Munich’s Lenbachhaus. His compatriot David Chipperfield restored and carefully modernized the Neue Museum in Berlin, and the Museum Folkwang in Essen also carries his signature. The German architect Stephan Braunfels designed the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. The list is long, and gets longer if you add the museums not devoted to fine art. These include Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin and Zaha Hadid’s Science Centre Phaeno in Wolfsburg, which the British newspaper The Guardian considers to be “one of the 12 most important buildings in the world”.
