The Folkwang Museum of Essen has been boasting a new building for half a year

Essen (Germany) - The West German city of Essen can boast one of the most architecturally remarkable galleries in the world since the beginning of the year. The Folkwang Museum received a new building from the renowned British architect David Chipperfield, which instantly became a tourist attraction in the half-million metropolis of the industrial Ruhr area. As a bearer of the title of European Capital of Culture 2010, it is now also trying to attract visitors with its former artistic treasures.
    Folkwang proudly held the title of the most beautiful museum in the world back in the 1930s, when it was referred to as such mainly due to its collections by co-founder of the New York Museum of Modern Art, Paul Sachs. Shortly after, however, the Nazis seized power in Germany and confiscated and sold a large portion of its works.
    Among the 1456 works that met this fate as "degenerate art" were paintings of classical modernism by Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, or Erich Heckel. At that time, the Essene Folkwang was not the only institution affected in this way.
    "More than a hundred museums in Germany were visited by commissions that checked what works they had by artists we would not tolerate, and then they were confiscated. If they thought a work held no value, it was immediately destroyed or sold on the international art market," recounted Tobias Burg, head of the graphic arts department at Folkwang, about this dark chapter in German history.
    Although 20 paintings were successfully recovered by the museum's management after the war, most of its valuable collection of modern art ended up permanently in foreign galleries and private collections. The core of its permanent exhibition now mainly consists of works of 19th-century German and French painting and art post-1945. However, Folkwang's new asset has become its new exhibition hall, officially opened on January 28.
    "It is a wonderful building that is already worth a visit by itself," praised Burg the modern, light-filled and airy concrete, glass, and steel structure made up of six ground-level objects and four courtyards, which was built as an extension to the original, heritage-protected gallery building from 1960. It offers 7000 square meters of exhibition spaces, including a 1400 square meter large hall for temporary exhibitions, whose layout can be changed freely using movable walls.
    The author of this work is the studio of David Chipperfield, holder of the most prestigious British architecture award, the Stirling Prize, whose portfolio also includes the reconstruction of Berlin's Neues Museum. Chipperfield's design won in the competition announced after the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach Foundation offered in 2006 to fund the construction of the new Folkwang museum building.
    "The condition was that it had to be completed by the time Essen became the European Capital of Culture, that is, by January 2010, it must not cost more than 55 million euros, and it must be very good architecture," Burg explained the conditions of the foundation named after the famous Essen industrialist.
    Along with the modern building, the gallery this year gave itself another gift - an exceptional exhibition of works that the Nazis sold off from Folkwang more than 70 years ago. Over thirty of them returned to the "crime scene" by July 25, including famous paintings by Marc Chagall, Purim, and Franz Marc, Pastoral Horse IV. Appropriately titled "The Most Beautiful Museum in the World - Folkwang Museum Until 1933".
    For almost half a year, parts of the collection built by the founder of this institution, Karl Ernst Osthaus, originally in the nearby Hagen and after his death in 1921 moved to the Ruhr metropolis, will be on display in Essen. The great art patron was also the author of the museum's mysterious name.
    "No Mr. Folkwang existed. It is a term from mythology, from the world of Germanic sagas. Folkwang means hall of the people," Burg explained. According to him, this name corresponds to Osthaus's intention to open the artistic treasures he gathered to the public. In this modern "hall of the people", more than 200,000 came to see them in half a year.