20.12.2024

Varnish conceals Monet’s splendor of color

Building design

From January 22 to May 28, 2017, the Fondation Beyeler is exhibiting a rich trove of Impressionist artist Claude Monet (1840-1926). Months earlier, the foundation’s restorers had discovered an acrylic resin varnish on one of the water lily paintings, the removal of which required time and precise knowledge. Advertorial Article Parallax Article Water lilies in a pond are a popular and famous subject […]

From January 22 to May 28, 2017, the Fondation Beyeler is exhibiting a rich trove of Impressionist artist Claude Monet (1840-1926). Months earlier, the foundation’s restorers had discovered an acrylic resin varnish on one of the water lily paintings, which required time and precise knowledge to remove.

Water lilies in a pond are a popular and famous subject of the Impressionist artist Claude Monet. They represent the idyllic nature of his own garden, where he sat and painted, capturing the clouds, trees and shore plants reflected in the pond in his paintings “en pleinair”. The work “Nymphéas” (1916-1919) also illustrates Monet’s art of painting and programmatic approach; it brings out the bright colors with a fine brushstroke and proves to be a characteristic part of his late work.

It was also “Nymphéas” that was kept under conservational examination in preparation for the current “Monet” exhibition at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen/Basel. Head conservator Markus Gross and his team discovered a thin layer of acrylic resin varnish on the painting. This had been mistakenly applied to the water lily painting as part of an earlier restoration. In academic art, a painting was only considered complete when it was finished with a transparent varnish. But Impressionists, like Monet, increasingly dispensed with this final step and left their work as free as possible of any materiality other than its color.

The found acrylic resin varnish falsified the water lily painting rather than seeking its originality. The originally matt, pastel-like surface is now covered with a uniform, glossy film. In addition, the sensitive color harmony has been impaired, as the varnish creates a saturation that makes the colors appear darker and more contrasting. The difference becomes particularly clear when compared to other, untouched paintings by the French artist.

Time-consuming restoration

Removing the coating was not only a technical challenge for the restorers, but also a time-consuming one. The restoration work requires precise knowledge of both the properties of the varnish material and the original material surface. It took six months before a solution could be found to remove the layer. “We now apply a solvent that is bound in a gel. It remains on the surface for a short time, then we vacuum and rinse it off again so that the exposed painting remains intact,” says Markus Gross. The restorers were only able to uncover a few square centimetres before the exhibition opened on 22 January 2017. At a size of 2 x 1.80 meters, there are still a few more to restore.

18.12.2024

Zaha Hadid builds Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium – but not after all

Building design

News

Back to square one in Tokyo: Zaha Hadid Architects will not be building the central stadium for the 2020 Olympic Games after all.

It’s back to square one in Tokyo: Zaha Hadid Architects will not be building the central stadium for the 2020 Olympic Games after all. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has now declared that the entire process will be reset to zero for cost reasons. “We are starting all over again,” the Guardian quotes the Japanese politician as saying. So there will probably be a new competition.
Ultimately, however, the ever-increasing construction costs are likely to be just one reason for the decision. Architecturally, the extravagant building (Hadid, that is) also came in for a lot of criticism – not least from other architects. Arata Isozaki had described Hadid’s design as a turtle just waiting for Japan to sink into the sea so it could swim away. Pritzker Prize winner Fumihiko Maki had organized a symposium against the design, which was attended by Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma and Sou Fujimoto, among others. A petition against the building was also initiated.
Patrik Schumacher, the first architect in Zaha Hadid’s office, apparently holds this architect-dominated counter-movement partly responsible for the decision. He wrote on Facebook: “Maki and Ito will be remembered for this.”

30.10.2024

The center of Berlin remains green

Building design

The perspective shows the planned steps on the banks of the Spree. — 1st prize to Büro RMP Lenzen: Steps on the banks of the Spree with a view of the cathedral (Visualization: RMP Lenzen)

RMP Stephan Lenzen win the open space competition for the City Hall and Marx-Engels-Forum in Berlin: The office won against 52 other entries.

It’s all about a prominent area in Berlin’s historic center: sandwiched between the new Humboldt Forum and the television tower, the Rathaus- and Marx-Engels-Forum are getting a new design. The RMP Stephan Lenzen office has won the competition for the green center of Berlin.

Where the roots of the city of Berlin lie, there will soon be no new construction. The open spaces of the Rathaus-Forum and Marx-Engels-Forum will remain green. However, the area will be given a new design, which will result in a flight of steps leading down to the adjacent Spree. The Berlin Senate Administration invited people to take part in a competition in the spring. After an initial phase, citizens were allowed to have their say. A total of 21 landscape architecture firms then developed their ideas further in the second phase of the competition. The landscape architects from RMP Stephan Lenzen ultimately won over the jury. They proposed a central ribbon that connects listed areas of the Rathausforum with the Marx-Engels-Forum. This green ribbon ends in a large staircase on the banks of the Spree. Opposite, on the other side of the water, the eastern façade of the new Humboldt Forum shines.

The open space in the middle of old Berlin used to be called “Park an der Spree”. As one of the most central green spaces in the Mitte district, it dates back to the Second World War. It damaged the Heilig-Geist-Viertel, which ultimately prompted the GDR leadership to demolish it. Since then, the area between Karl-Liebknecht-Straße in the north, the park by the television tower in the east, Rathausstraße in the south and the Spree in the west has remained undeveloped. For a long time, there was an ensemble of monuments in the middle of the area, but this had to be moved to the north-western edge when the subway was built. The future of the Marx-Engels Forum has been under discussion since the 1990s. The ideas were many and varied. They ranged from the reconstruction of the Heilig-Geist-Viertel to the design of a park at the Marx-Engels-Forum. The latter ultimately prevailed.

Marx-Engels-Forum competition brief

The design of a park on the Marx-Engels-Forum now had to be fleshed out as part of the ideas and realization competition. The participants were asked to engage with the place where Berlin was founded, the historical layers hidden in the ground and the surrounding area. At the end of the long debate about the future of this site, citizens’ guidelines for the future development of the Rathaus Forum and the Marx-Engels Forumwere drawn up . These guidelines state that an open space should be designed that does justice to the dimensions and significance of the location and strengthens the identity of the site. In addition, it should bring the eventful history to life and at the same time enable diverse and intensive uses.

In the first phase, the competition initially asked for a vision and an idea for the entire Marx-Engels-Forum. Only the participants in the second phase had to derive their vision. In addition, they outlined an intermediate state for the year 2030 in the ideas part of the competition. In a third realization part, the concrete implementation for 2024 was then to be shown. This step-by-step approach is based on the intended gradual realization of the project. This will take a long time. Accordingly, the ideas must be based on a clear approach and offer a great deal of flexibility for process-based implementation.

The landscape architects from RMP Lenzen provided the most convincing solution for the new design of the Rathaus- and Marx-Engels-Forum. They designed an open space that is characterized by a striking figure. The plan is to keep the Rathaus- and Marx-Engels-Forum free of buildings. The green space promises a high quality of stay with areas for strolling, relaxing and enjoying spectacular views of the cathedral, Humboldt Forum and television tower. RMP Lenzen is equipping the new space with plenty of greenery and lots of shady trees. But water is also included, which contributes to cooling as well as infiltration areas that fit in with future rainwater management. Overall, the contribution to the Marx-Engels-Forum competition envisages a modern, climate-resilient urban space that enables a variety of uses.

Good things take time

The idea of initially creating a green space in the heart of old Berlin preserves opportunities for future generations. For the near future, the jury recommended that the first prize-winning work by RMP Lenzen be realized. This brings a controversial debate to an end. Hardly any other place in Berlin has experienced more planning and discussions than the Marx-Engels-Forum. But for the building senator, it is clear that the city of Berlin has done the right thing. After the fall of the Wall, it did not rush into planning. Now, against the backdrop of current plans for Alexanderplatz and Molkenmarkt and against the backdrop of climate adaptation and the mobility turnaround, things can be designed in peace.

Would you like to find out more about projects in the capital? We have summarized the next planning steps on the former Berlin Tegel airport site for you.