While in every part of the house the intrados of the wooden roof is kept exposed. Of great interest is the solution of the internal atrium, a neutral distribution space that is covered by an exposed concrete slab designed in relief and painted white.

Casa Holtermann also retains, of the Roman domus, the inclusive character, with an external perimeter wall in bricks. Bienefeld characterizes the brick walls with a superficial plastic. It tapers on the outside at the few openings, so as to frame them as if they were jambs or surface moldings; inside, under the roof of the peristyle, bay windows cling to the wall and frames with large windows open up that try to conquer the light. In this way, an interesting dialectic is determined in the way of relating to the outside both of the external perimeter wall – closed – and of the internal wall – open – of the house.

The peristyle features six monolithic columns in local sandstone, with a rectangular section, directed transversally to the entrance so as to perceive its entire massive load; a continuous wooden beam rests on the columns, which closes the secondary framework of the roof.
Between the column and the beam, and between the column and the floor, Bienefeld places two cruciform metal elements which, like modern abacuses and tori, act as a junction between the parts. Each part of the construction is thus well defined and the juxtaposition, not trivial, is achieved through complex artisanal devices. This is what happens in the solutions implemented to resolve the discontinuities between wall and frame: sometimes they are metal frames for fixed glass mounted flush with the outside, sometimes real projecting glass bodies, sometimes elegant wooden frames with frames that cover the thickness of the wall. The last note is the mono-material nature of the finishes: brick is used for the external walls, left exposed, and for the internal ones, treated with lime whitewash; but also for all the flooring, both those of the external courtyard and those for the interiors of the house.

Text by Impress Edili.

On a sunny day, this oculus resembles the flare of a star that can be attributed to a reference of Brother Klaus’s vision in the womb. The very somber and reflective feelings that become inevitable in one’s encounter with the chapel make it one of the most striking pieces of religious architecture to date. With no plumbing, bathrooms, running water, electricity, and with it’s charred concrete and lead floors, the seemingly uninviting chapel remains an anticipated destination for many.

“To me, buildings can have a beautiful silence that I associate with attributes such as composure, self-evidence, durability, presence, and integrity, and with warmth and sensuousness as well; a building that is being itself, being a building, not representing anything, just being.”

Text provided by the architect.

There is a freestanding hearth clad in milky granite in the communal wing, which visually separates the dining room from the living room and forms a clear vertical accent in the otherwise horizontal arrangement. A wide range of materials with warm textures are combined: oak, granite, brick, ceramic, glass and concrete. Textured planes of chalky brick on the external facades are interspersed with large oak-framed doors that open out onto the garden.

Text provided by the architect.

Living and working takes place inside two insulated wooden „boxes“, connected by a big hall used as an entrance. On the western and northwestern parts of the house, weathering was too strong over the past decade. As a result the facade had to be partly renewed. In these parts window and door openings where kept, whereas materials of different ages and appearances intersect in a distinct manner, generating a kind of unmistakable spirit for this building.

Text provided by the architect.

The cottage forms an extension of these freestanding roof structures and a fifth, floa- ting roof is added. The new building incorporates the „genius loci“. A floating platform, which is inserted under the roof, forms the main space of the cottage and a threshing floor is created. This platform is completely glazed and the boundary between inside and outside becomes blurred. The interior space expands to the exterior space and a garden house is created. Analogies to the classics of modernism, the „Glass House“
by Phillip Johnson and the „Farnsworth House“ by Mies van der Rohe emerge. The occupant becomes an observer of nature and the environment becomes the main pro- tagonist of the interior. A staging of nature; slightly elevated from a kind of pedestal, the resident observes the surroundings, the constant interplay of cloud formations, the seasons and the grazing of sheep in front of the cottage determine the atmosphere and character of the cottage and the surroundings become a scenery, a backdrop.
The complete beauty of nature opens up to the user.

The visitor enters the cottage through a terrace, which is located in front of the cottage in the east. This serves as an outdoor area in summer and is an extension of the interior. From here, through the large sliding door (2.4m x 3.4m), one enters the main room. In its proportions (4 x 10m, 4.1m clear height) based on the barns of classic longhouses, the cottage seeks here the dialogue between, on the one hand, rural, typical local typologies and classical modernism.

The main room is subtly divided into 3 areas by an inserted wall element, without dividing the space in its entirety. The southern area, which gets sun all day long, is the dining area with its generous free-standing table. The northern area, where the sun shines from 5 o‘clock in the evening, is the living area. In the central area, the furniture element integrates the wet area and visually separates it from the main room. In front of the set wall unit, the kitchen floats as a free, mirrored volume.

Two wooden cubes are inserted into this fully glazed platform, which accommodate the sleeping berths. These closed volumes form a retreat in contrast to the open main space and convey a sense of security. The cubes can be opened to the main space through generous sliding doors, allowing flexible uses of the sleeping berths (daybed, couch) in conjunction with the main space.

The border between integration and segregation, between landscape and architecture, between rural and modern, between open and modern and the careful balancing
of these elements determines the design and let the cottage together with the lush nature become a unique place.

Text provided by the architect.

At the core of the complex is a mixed-use three-story building. Entirely run down when the project started, it acted as a two-level residence for the farmworkers, with low ceilings and an only partly used upper floor. Heim Balp revisited the existing structure by connecting multiple spaces to create a holistic ensemble rife for social and cultural exchange. Keeping only the walls, the roof and façades were entirely redone using congregated metal, similar to that used for rural structures in the area throughout the 20th century.

The facade was repainted in black with the intention of exposing the new interventions in the space, contrasting them with the existing aesthetics rather than concealing them, one of Heim Balp’s signature approaches to restoration. Widely transformed, the exterior front features new openings in addition to the existing ones, creating a free, abstract composition on the black canvas that is the newly colored plastered facade.

The beating heart of the edifice is the kitchen, where the inhabitants gather throughout the day to cook and eat – a central aspect of life at Güldenhof. Adjacent to it, the laundry, reading, and entry rooms gather in a new volume extending from the building to the outside, clad with metal and translucent panels on a wooden core. In the west wing, the second floor was demolished to create a vast high ceiling living and studio space where a striking traditional multi-purpose oven, typically used in rural Russia, was installed. The 4 x 5-meter structure is at the centre of the room with a central chimney and several platforms investing the vast space around it. Used as a heating system for the house as well as food and water heating, it also acts as a place to rest. The interior design of the space mirrors Vo’s approach to art: the many objects, plants, rugs that fill the room are a conscious form of storytelling.

The beating heart of the edifice is the kitchen, where the inhabitants gather throughout the day to cook and eat – a central aspect of life at Güldenhof. Adjacent to it, the laundry, reading, and entry rooms gather in a new volume extending from the building to the outside, clad with metal and translucent panels on a wooden core. In the west wing, the second floor was demolished to create a vast high ceiling living and studio space where a striking traditional multi-purpose oven, typically used in rural Russia, was installed. The 4 x 5-meter structure is at the centre of the room with a central chimney and several platforms investing the vast space around it. Used as a heating system for the house as well as food and water heating, it also acts as a place to rest. The interior design of the space mirrors Vo’s approach to art: the many objects, plants, rugs that fill the room are a conscious form of storytelling.

A few meters away, the East Barn is a two-storey stone and brick structure towered by a preserved timber roof. The ground floor has been converted into a humidity-controlled art storage and archive, with a section for paper and film – the original purpose of the complex in response to scarce storage spaces in Berlin. On the first floor, a large exhibition space with a 10- meter-high ceiling is divided into two areas, both kept purposefully empty for temporary installations and performances. The West Barn is an authentic stone structure with timber roofing, kept in its original condition. The space is used as a timber and metal storage space to support the workshops appended onto it, which oversee the year- round production and shipping preparation of artworks produced by Vo and his studio team.

Central to the complex, the North Stables host the community’s extensive sustainable farming and gardening activities. Solely the exterior walls have been retained, while the roof and floor were removed to transform the space into an indoor greenhouse with a new timber and translucent polycarbonate panel roofing. While it supports the residents during the winter, it is also a place nourished by and cultivated through art. A small, paved surface acts as an event space where music, performances, and meals can take place when Güldenhof opens to the public. Gutshof Güldenhof is the second extensive art-related project undertaken by Heim Balp Architekten, following their ongoing redevelopment of the early 20th-century Lindower Straße factory buildings in Berlin into a creative hub with artist studios; workshops; exhibition spaces; and apartments, to be completed in 2022.

Text provided by the architect.

The thin roof shell with the large roof protrusions lays itself protectively over the two building volumes, which are angled at 45° to the slope. The resulting floor plan organization appears abstract, but its aim is to facilitate a variety of references to the site without coming too close to the neighbouring buildings, and at the same time to optimally capture the sun in the south.

A central, open staircase leads via a gallery to the upper floor, whose small, intimate and very different individual rooms form a contrast to the generous living space under the protective roof. Maximally large openings repeatedly bring the landscape into the house. The different sleeping situations are meant to give pleasure and support the vacation feeling: a bunk bed, similar to those in mountain huts, a cosy bedroom reminiscent of an alcove, the sleeping gallery under the roof and a bedroom with a view of the stars. In total, the abode offers eight varied sleeping places for families, friends and couples.

Text provided by the architect.

In fact, from the living area on the ground floor, each staircase services as an independent environment: a bedroom for the parents, the children and a study. A solution that recalls the one used by Rem Koolhaas in the Lemoine house in Bordeaux (1998), whose children’s bedrooms are separated from those of their parents and reached by an autonomous spiral staircase. With their different geometries – linear, circular, square – the three staircases structure the living area on the ground floor. The smooth concrete of the walls and the wood of the floors recalls the interiors of Haus W, built by the studio in 2007, on the lot immediately adjacent to that of the new building.

Images provided by the architect.

Extensive bombing during World War II left the building in ruins with some sections severely damaged and others completely destroyed. Few attempts at repair
were made after the war, and the wreck was left exposed with only a minimum of consolidation and protection undertaken during the GDR period. After David Chipperfield Architects’ appointment to the project in 1997–98, the building and
restoration took nearly eleven years to complete, and the entire Museum Island was added to the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list in 1999.

The project was unique given that no earlier reconstruction attempt had been fully realised over a relatively long period of quiescence. Its patron’s original intention of linking museum design and presentation in a symbiotic relationship of exhibits and exhibition spaces had not only lost its appeal for the contemporary visitor but in many cases could simply no longer be created since much of the original material – both artefacts and rooms – no longer existed, especially in the larger spaces where this didactic unity was originally most apparent.

When considering the way forward, it was clear that the ruin should not be interpreted as a backdrop for a completely new architecture but neither was an exact reconstruction of what had been irreversibly lost in the war seen as an option. A single continuous structure that incorporates nearly all of the available damaged fabric while allowing a series of contemporary elements to be added became the preferred path, often described as ‘the third way’. The key aims of the project
were to recomplete the original volume, and to repair and restore the parts that remained after the destruction of World War II. The process can be described as a multidisciplinary interaction between repairing, conserving, restoring and recreating all of its components. The original sequence of rooms was restored with newly built sections that create continuity with the existing structure. The almost archaeological restoration followed the guidelines of the Charter of Venice, respecting the historical structure in its different states of preservation.

All the gaps in the existing structure were filled in without competing with its brightness or surface. The restoration and repair of the existing elements of the building were driven by the idea that the spatial context and materiality of the original structure should be emphasised – the contemporary reflects the lost but without imitating it.

The new exhibition rooms are built of large-format prefabricated concrete elements consisting of white cement mixed with Saxonian marble chips. Formed from the same concrete elements, the new main staircase repeats the formal idea of the original without replicating it, and sits within the majestic hall that is preserved only as a brick volume, devoid of its former ornamentation. Other new volumes
– the north-west wing, with the Egyptian court and the Apollo risalit; the apse in the Greek courtyard; and the South Dome – are built of recycled handmade bricks, complementing the preserved sections. With the reinstatement and completion of the mostly preserved colonnade at the eastern and southern sides of the Neues Museum, the pre-war urban situation is re-established to the east. A new building, the James Simon Gallery, will be constructed between the Neues Museum and the Kupfergraben, echoing the urban situation of the site pre-1938 when Schinkel’s Packhof (Customs House) faced the Spree.

In October 2009, after more than sixty years as a ruin, the Neues Museum reopened to the public as the third restored building on Museum Island, exhibiting the collections of the Egyptian Museum and the Museum of Pre- and Early History. The building bears witness to its complex history while some of its original technological innovations have been laid bare. The very incompleteness of its decorative pattern helps to create a holistic understanding of the historic and contemporary structure and its original and current purpose.

Text provided by the architect.