104 MEMORIALS CASE STUDY EXILE MUSEUM, BERLIN


Berlin’s Anhalter Bahnhof was once Europe’s largest and busiest train station: in its peak decade, the 1920s, it connected Berlin to all the major cities in southern Europe. It is also the station from which millions fled rather than face persecution/incarceration – as well as the place from which the unlucky ones that remained were forcibly deported by the Nazi regime. Partly demolished after the war, its few ruined fragments are shortly to be transformed into a museum that bears witness to the experience of exile. Danish architects Dorte Mandrup won the competition to design this important legacy project. Shaping the structure like a softly curved arch, the Exile Museum ‘will embrace and highlight the importance of the remaining fragment of Anhalter Bahnhof’, says practice director and founder Mandrup. ‘The new building will allow history to be visible and create a dialogue between past and present, where even today millions of people are still forced to leave their homes.’ After the station’s demolition in 1961, just the vaulted entrance remained. That entrance will be absorbed into an open entrance piazza behind an open glass facade, which allows visitors to see all the activities on offer. The building will host exhibitions, events, education facilities, a shop and a restaurant with an outdoor terrace. The pathway from the ruined vault into the museum follows a similar pathway to that which people would have taken out onto the tracks. A perforated brick facade offers views of Berlin to those inside, while creating a flickering shadow play within the three-storey foyer. The Stiftung Exilmuseum Berlin is a civic


initiative, established in 2018 by Nobel laureate Herta Müller, former German President Joachim Gauck and art dealer and co-founder of Villa Grisebach, Bernd Schultz.


Right A perforated brick facade offers views of the city to visitors inside


Below The museum ‘will embrace and highlight the importance of the remaining fragment of Anhalter Bahnhof’


MIR


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