10 historic museum buildings with contemporary additions

10 historic museum buildings with contemporary additions

There is no shortage of historic buildings in need of expansion or reassignment, alterations to old architecture through contemporary interventions have flourished over the past four decades, especially in the service of new or growing art museums. These spaces represent the resilience of our historical heritage through contemporary times, demonstrating that the very combination of two very different architectural styles can be both beautiful and awe-inspiring. Here are ten of the best examples of contemporary interventions on historic buildings in art museums around the world.

The Louvre

The Louvre is one of the most important art museums in the world and arguably the most emblematic example of the marriage of contemporary and historical architectural styles. The main structure of the museum is designed in Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical styles. Yet in the main courtyard of the complex is the 1989 IMPei glass pyramid, a radical departure from the historic architecture that surrounds it. Intended to invoke the monumental architecture of the past while representing a stylistic break with tradition, the intervention was both strongly criticized and deeply praised.

English museum

Another building with centuries of architectural history, the British Museum was originally a large neoclassical museum designed by Sir Robert Smirke in the 1800s. The Great Court, designed by Norman Foster and inaugurated in 2000, unified the wings of the building in a central entrance space with an unconventional glass ceiling.

Jewish museum

Unlike the Louvre and the British Museum, Daniel Libeskind’s 1988 deconstructivist intervention on the original Baroque Jewish Museum in Berlin consisted of two seemingly separate buildings that were connected only invisibly underground. While respecting the old building by leaving it intact, Libeskind’s adjacent intervention represents a symbolic new interpretation of post-Holocaust Jewish history, which occurred after the construction of the Baroque building.

Fundatie Museum

Originally a neoclassical palace from the mid-19^e century, this museum in the Netherlands was modified in 2012-2013 by architects Bierman Henket. When the success of the museum prompted a need for expansion, Henket chose to build a new freestanding egg-shaped structure above the original palace rather than next to it in order to preserve solitude and the symmetry of the original design.

Stadel Museum

Originally designed in the 19^e century in the Grunderzeit style, this German art museum was transformed in 2012 by the architectural firm Schneider + Schumacher. Made up of an underground extension under the garden, the intervention of Schneider + Schumacher curves the earth in the garden into a slightly domed roof and introduces large intermittent ceiling lights visible from above. With this unconventional contemporary transformation, the museum’s architecture becomes a sort of land art in its own right.

Royal Ontario Museum

Another contemporary intervention by Daniel Libeskind – though not as universally acclaimed as the Jewish Museum – is a crystalline extrusion over the historic Royal Ontario Museum in Canada. Built in the neo-Romanesque style in the 19^e century by Frank Darling and John A. Pearson, the structure expanded in 2007 to include the Libeskind Crystal, intended to study concepts of accessibility and the boundaries between public and private.

MOMA PS1

In 1997, Frederick Fisher and Partners transformed a 19^e– Romanesque school of the century in a lively contemporary art space. While keeping the historic style of the original building intact, the architects enlarged the space, dramatized the facade and constructed a separate modern entrance. While this is a clear intervention, the redesign has been intentionally understated so as not to overshadow the art.

Moritzburg Museum

One of the oldest original buildings in this collection, Germany’s Gothic Moritzburg military castle was built in the 15^e century. After its partial destruction during the Thirty Years’ War, the castle remained partially in ruins until 2008, more than a century after it became a museum. In their expansion, Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos designs new exhibition floors attached to a new roof. With an angular top and glass windows protruding from existing walls, the transition between the two styles is sudden and dramatic.

Bundeswehr Military History Museum

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Another intervention by Libeskind, the Bundeswehr Military History Museum, as seen today, includes a huge silver arrowhead protruding from a 19^e-th century German armory. The intervention opposes openness and rigidity, democracy and authoritarianism.

Tate Modern

Housed in the former Bankside Power Station from the late 1800s, London’s Tate Modern retains much of the original building, but includes contemporary additions by Herzog and de Meuron. Initial development took place in the late 1990s and expansion continued from 2012 to 2016. The most significant interventions included a two-story glass extension to the original roof and the construction of a new building on site called Switch House, a mix of the two styles on the main structure. Much of the original interiors have been retained and reused, with the ‘Turbine Hall’ becoming a new large-scale installation space and ‘The Tanks’ being used for smaller performances and installations.