More than thirty years have passed since the work of Germany’s preeminent nineteenth- century architect, Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781–1841) was presented in a major retrospective in Berlin. In 1981, to mark the two hundredth anniversary of his birth, both parts of the divided city held separate exhibitions. East Berlin made use of the most obvious choice for such an event, Schinkel’s Altes Museum of 1825, and proudly focused on his buildings in the center of Berlin and Potsdam (both part of East Germany at that time), exhibiting a series of large models and architectural drawings. West Berlin’s museums had inherited Schinkel’s paintings, as well as some drawings, furniture, and furnishings, and—nolens volens—focused on those, downplaying his architecture and emphasizing the work of his pupils and followers. The site of the exhibition was the Martin-Gropius-Bau of 1881, designed by one of Schinkel’s students.
The recent exhibition, conceived by an...
University of California Press