The Kunsthalle is now divided into four different sections: the Gallery of Old Masters (Master Bertram, Master Francke, the Dutch painters); the Gallery of 19th Century Art (C. D. Friedrich, Ph. O. Runge, Menzel); the Gallery of Classical Modernism (Munch, Kirchner, Klee, Beckmann, Lehmbruck) - and the Gallery of Contemporary Art.

O. M. Ungers is an internationally acclaimed German architect. From 1963 onwards he held a university teaching post in Berlin, then at a number of American universities and finally at the Düsseldorf Art Academy until 1990. His most recent building projects were carried out in Karlsruhe (regional library), Frankfurt (exhibition centre), Washington (residence of the German ambassador) and most significantly in Berlin (Friedrichstadt arcade and exhibition centre).

The Building

For O. M. Ungers the square is the perfect form, and in this he refers back to the Renaissance period and the work of Palladio and Ledoux. His concept for the museum acknowledges a debt above all to Karl Friedrich Schinkel. With the great respect Ungers has for the existing facade of the Kunsthalle, he designed the new building in two sections: a four-storey cube with a pale limestone facade and a large underground section linking the new and old buildings. The base section has a red granite exterior. Taking the square as his basic shape, Ungers has created a clearly-defined architecture with an interior designed both to serve the purposes of presenting art and to meet the needs of museum visitors.

The Room Concept

The architect and the head of the museum agreed on certain basic principles: the new building was not to be an ostentatious demonstration of architecture, but rather the aim was to create optimal surroundings for the presentation of artworks, to devise rhythmical progressions of rooms which can be varied in size, and to use simple materials.