A stone facade with slim columns fronts the David Chipperfield-designed James Simon Galerie, the architect's new building on Museum Island in Berlin.
The gallery will function as a new entrance for the cluster of cultural buildings located on an island in the Spree river, an area that David Chipperfield Architects has been re-masterplanning since 1999.

Occupying a narrow plot of land, the new entrance building features a grand terrace that runs the full length of the building.
The facade comprises reconstituted stone with natural stone aggregate, chosen to complement the limestone, sandstone and rendered frontages of the other museums on the island.

The building is raised up on a stone plinth, over which sit the tall narrow columns that form the colonnade. Chipperfield's team chose this classical style to work in conversation with the Neues Museum next door. Neus was designed by Prussian architect Friedrich August Stüler in the mid 19th century, to a commission from the King of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who envisaged Museum Island as a "cultural acropolis". The building opened in 1855, but closed in 1939 after sustaining heavy bomb damage during the second world war.

The museum finally reopened in 2009, following a renovation from David Chipperfield Architects and Julian Harrap Architects. The project was awarded the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award in 2011.

Three flights of wide stone st...