Archi.ru continues a series of publications about the "historical appearance" of the building, options for its preservation, restoration and interpretation.
The Alte Pinakothek Munich is a unique building with a stunning history. From the beginning of its construction in 1826, the fate of the richest museum in Bavaria and one of the oldest public art galleries in Europe was different from that of other museums of that time.
To begin with, it was customary in Bavaria to build art galleries exclusively at palaces and castles, and the public was amazed when King Ludwig I chose for the new gallery the sparsely populated Munich district of Maxvorstadt - now, by the way, one of the most prestigious in the Bavarian capital. The style of the Pinakothek building is neo-Renaissance, imitating the High Renaissance - an architectural manifesto emphasizing that the museum is not only a "house of art history", but also a "history of art" in itself.
At the head of the project of the Old Pinakothek were two people: the architect Leo von Klenze and its future director Johann Georg von Dillis. And many principles that today seem obvious to any specialist in the museum sphere were then invented and applied for the first time by these people: division into large exhibition spaces and small exhibition rooms, fairly bright natural lighting of the interior, overhead light that emphasizes the beauty of the picture, but falls so as not to blind the viewer. Other certainly innovative ideas for that time, which were taken into account in the design of the Pinakothek, are constant climatic conditions and protection of exhibits from dust.
Ludwig I believed that art belonged not only to him, but to the entire people, so the gallery, which was also unusual, was immediately made public with free admission on Sunday (this tradition has survived to this day). The townspeople, however, did not immediately appreciate the monarch's generosity: at first, their greatest interest was a small garden with lawns around the Pinakothek, where families came for a picnic. They did not prohibit picnics, hoping that over time people would pay attention to the museum, go there and, finally, join the "high".
Much time has passed since the era of King Ludwig I, Klenze and Dillis, when, after the end of World War II, the building was dilapidated. We must pay tribute to the Germans: they assumed such a development of events, and at the very beginning of the war, Professor Otto Meitinger began to make detailed drawings of all buildings in Munich, so that later descendants could accurately reproduce the historical development. So when the architect Hans Dölgast began the reconstruction of the Pinakothek and proposed to show the "scars of war" by highlighting the reconstructed parts of the gallery's facades and interior with stylistic and material, the architectural authorities in Bavaria were very unhappy and insisted on a critical approach to the preservation of the historical heritage. From their point of view, the Old Pinakothek was "… a historical event in itself and should be left to descendants in the form in which it was originally conceived."
However, there were other opinions, such as that “… proposals to replace the restoration of Dölgast with the original version resemble cowardly attempts to close Dachau to the public because it allegedly damages tourism in the country” or “… should everything really look like this, as if nothing happened after the catastrophe from which we just barely got rid of?"
In the end, Dölgast's reconstruction became a fait accompli and, as the architect later admitted, his best work. The memory of historical events has been preserved, despite all attempts to bypass the sensitive issues of the past or hide them. In 1957, the Old Pinakothek was opened to the public after reconstruction work that lasted 4 years. Parts of the facades destroyed by the war were emphasized, but not deliberately, but very correctly, showing the difference between two different stories: the architectural one and the one to which the terrible bombing that destroyed the building belonged.
It should be noted that Dölgast completed not only the project for the reconstruction of the facades, but also the interior of the Pinakothek. He became the author of the beautiful main staircase, which seems to have returned the building to its former grandeur and, at the same time, has become a symbol of democratic openness. Architectural historians rate the Old Pinakothek as a fine example of classical German architecture from the period of post-war reconstruction.
The Old Pinakothek is now part of the museum complex, which also consists of the New Pinakothek and the Pinakothek of Modernity. It is not easy with the naked eye to notice the difference between the reconstructed part and the one that was originally, and in most cases tourists do not see it. And without detracting from the architectural merits of the Dölgast project, it is worth emphasizing: how important this reconstruction was as a step that demonstrated that the past, even if it is not as beautiful as we would like, cannot be hidden, and that for posterity it is much more important than a thorough historical restoration - to remember about the mistakes of the past and not allow the same in the future.
At one of the side facades of the museum, there is a sculpture of a young man holding a horse by the bridle, which does not immediately attract the eye. She, riddled with bullets, was left as a reminder of the terrible war - just like the Old Pinakothek.
