26.05.2010
Museum für Fotografie
On 26 May 2010, the National Museums' Art Library will be celebrating the reopening of the glistening, modernised Kaisersaal in the Museum of Photography. The reopening will mean that the Museum of Photography is once again shared by two institutions, with a total of 2000 square metres of floor space at their disposal for major exhibitions. Exhibitions held by the Art Library's Collection of Photography will be housed in the Kaisersaal on the second floor, while the Helmut Newton Foundation will continue to use the two lower floors for both its permanent exhibition, 'Helmut Newton's Private Property', that has now enjoyed a successful run of several years, as well as individual exhibitions on Helmut Newton's work and his contemporaries. With some 650 square metres of exhibition space and new lighting, air temperature and humidity control technology, the Kaisersaal is now the largest exhibition space for a gallery of photography anywhere in Berlin. It now means that all floors of the building at Jebensstraße 2, once the home of a military casino, can finally be put to full use.
The Museum of Photography has been a magnet for photography enthusiasts from all over the world since its opening in 2004. In the last few years alone, over 700,000 visitors have flocked to see exhibitions there organised by the Helmet Newton Foundation. During this time, the Art Library's Collection of Photography also generated great interest with its displays of contemporary photography, which were hosted in the Kaisersaal, while still in a state of ruin. Until recently, the ballroom (in what was formerly the officers' casino of the Prussian Landwehr) could only be put to temporary and partial use, due to damage incurred during the bombardment in the Second World War.
Only after renovation and the complete redesign of its interior by Kahlfeldt Architekten has an exhibition space been created that now conforms to international standards expected of a museum building. The renovation work was completed in the autumn of last year - 100 years after the building was first opened in a ceremony attended by Emperor Wilhelm II, on 2 September 1909.