Expansion of the art gallery

The Bremen Kunsthalle is located in a Neoclassical building from 1849 situated in a park that was created after the demolition of the city walls. At that time, it was the first public park in Germany. The art gallery had been struggling with a lack of exhibition space since the last century, when a new wing was designed for it in the 1980s by Werner Düttmann.
In 2005, a competition was held for the overall reconstruction and expansion of the exhibition areas. In the competition, which involved 351 teams, a fifteen-member committee selected the winning design from the Berlin studio Hufnagel Pütz Rafaelian, honoring the historical legacy and symmetrically connecting modern exhibition wings made of glass and concrete on both sides. Düttmann's later extension had to be demolished; however, the Neoclassical sandstone facade remained untouched, even in the areas of the new extensions. There is an approximately thirty-centimeter gap between the historical facade and the walls of the new gallery.
During the two-year reconstruction of the Bremen gallery, two thousand paintings were loaned to more than twenty German museums. At the time of the gallery's opening, when the paintings were still on loan, visitors could enjoy the quality of the empty exhibition halls. The only two artistic artifacts at the opening were an optical installation by American sculptor James Turrell, whose sculpture Above-Between-Below (2011) gradually traverses three floors of the historic building. Another artistic experience in the new exhibition halls was provided by the music of minimalist composer Philip Glass.
After the reconstruction, the museum's area was increased by one third. The archive of prints and drawings is now doubled. In addition to significant improvements in internal communications, safety, and technical facilities, new teaching and mediation rooms have also been added. On the ground floor of the museum facing south into the park is the Canova restaurant.