Light from within and without

After years of building work, Potsdam’s old market square and palace have now been largely restored to their pre-war state, and another gap in the urban landscape closed. The latest addition to the Potsdam ensemble is the baroque Barberini palace, which was destroyed in the Second World War, and has now been rebuilt as a museum of art.  Hasso Plattner, founder of the German multinational software corporation SAP, funded the project as a home for his art collection. The new museum was opened with exhibitions on Impressionism and early modern art, flooding it with light and colour.

Potsdam has gained a new private museum of modern art thanks to founder Hasso Plattner, a billionaire with a passion for art. What looks historical is in fact all new – the building, the façade, the rooms inside; only the site is the same as that of the original Barberini palace of 1771/72. This palace was commissioned by no less than Frederick the Great (1712-1786) and modelled on a palace in Rome that he admired: the baroque Palazzo Barberini by the architects Maderno, Bernini and Borromini. It added another landmark to Potsdam’s market square alongside the church and the obelisk, the town hall, and the ...