Martin-Gropius-Bau

It’s a monumental building with often monumental (temporary) exhibitions. From photographer Andre Kertesz for example, or David Bowie, or Fabrizio Plessi. His enormous installations filled with video art seemed conceived for the Martin-Gropius-Bau: grand and thrilling, a symbiosis of the grandeur of the architecture with the colourful images from the Italian. Suspend rowboats upside down in the big room and fill them with tv screens that show a red glow: it’s an idea that not comes into everyone’s mind.

Martin-Gropius-Bau is not the most well-known museum in town. It’s not at Museumsinsel or on Potsdamer Platz (though pretty close). It is though located adjacent to the impressive emptiness of the Topographie des Terrors, but the visitors of their exhibitions rarely visit those of its neighbour.

A pity, because the Martin-Gropius-Bau is shining in full splendor again. In the Second World War the building was severely damaged, during the Cold War it was directly opposite the wall, hence the many bullet holes in the facade. In the past decade it has finally, and justifiably, started to rise again in the Berlin museum landscape.