Munich - New Picture Gallery

(Local Name: Neue Pinakothek) The original Neue Pinakothek, built between 1846 and 1853 by August von Voit (1801-70) and Friedrich von Gärtner (1792-1847), suffered heavy damage during the Second World War and had to be pulled down. Thereafter for many years the Gallery's collection of late 18th and 19th C. art was housed in the Haus der Kunst.

The new gallery, standing opposite the Alte Pinakothek and contrasting with it, was designed by Alexander von Branca and erected in 1975-80. It is 160m/525ft long by 100m/330ft deep and is the largest museum built in Germany since the last War. In spite of its great size the building is far from ponderous in effect, its bulk being relieved by the rows of narrow round-headed windows, the high glass wall of the entrance hall on the south side (in which the round-arched motif is continued), the pent-roof windows, set back above one other, and the angled end walls and staircases with copper roofs. Branca's use of traditional architectural elements such as round-headed arches, normally considered taboo in modern architecture, reflected his desire to get away from what he called "the pure schematism" of the modern style. The building consists of two ranges of rooms: one, comprising 22 "Säle" (large rooms) and eleven Kabinette (small rooms), houses the collections of the Neue Pinakothek. The other, in the western part of the building contains the offices of the Directorate of the Bavarian State Picture Collections, a library, photographic laboratories and the Doerner Institute for the Scientific Investigation and Restoration of Works of Art.

In the basement are a room for temporary exhibitions and a video room. There is also a center for curatorial training.

Collection

The Neue Pinakothek possesses some 550 pictures and 50 works of sculpture ranging from Roccoco to Jugendstil (Art Nouveau). The foundations of the collection were laid in 1841 by King Ludwig I, who purchased a private collection belonging to Leo von Klenze. In 1868, the year of Ludwig's death, the gallery still had only about 400 works; it was enlarged in 1891 through the gift of Konrad Fiedler. Between 1911 and 1913 further acquisitions were made by purchase from Hugo von Tschudi, including works by Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Manet and Monet.