A well kept secret of Berlin: Georg Kolbe Museum

Berlin is the city of special museums, but only few of them are on the usual touristic routes. Some of them are hidden in secret corners of the city, out of sight, but easy to be found by the real lovers of art. Take, for instance, Georg Kolbe Museum. It is situated in an area without high tourist attractions, but easy to be reached after visiting the Olympic Stadium, either by train - S-Bahn Heerstrasse and around 10 minutes or walking - or by bus. 

I wanted to visit this museum for a long time, but there were always new temptations around in my area so I left it for later. This autumn, without too many opportunities to go out of the city as often as I wanted to, and determined to see the Jean Arp exhibition - Navel of the Avant-garde - before closing, I finally made it. Representative of the Berlin Secession movement, Kolbe was considered one of the biggest sculptors of Germany. He collaborated with Mies van der Rohde for the building of Barcelona Pavillion and had a relatively limited collaboration with the far-right regime.  

The museum is the first open in West Berlin after the war, in 1950, hosted in the house that Kolbe used to work between 1929 and 1947.

Human bodies are spread all over the garden and the entrance, silent apparitions at human scale. Their tensed postures made you think that they are alive and ready to share with you some secrets.

Only the wild nature balances the wild energy of the statues. The huge trees put everything in a new perspective. It is so much strength and natural power everywhere that I start my tour with a long stay in the garden, trying to feel the synchronisation and contrasts between human and nature forces. 

The exhibition spaces are big,wrapped in the natural light coming out of the wall-sized windows. It also has a library. I met Jean Arp's work before, at the Modern Art Museum in Strasbourg. The exhibition at Kolbe Museum was focused on the pictorial sign of the navel, carved in stone, shaped in plastic or bronze, considered the humankind bond to nature. Arp puts into question many of the principles of the traditional art not only through sculptures, but also collages and paintings. 

Outside, more human bodies are watching the entrance, surprised in their private worlds but still keeping the sight outside, like a warning to the accidental visitor that they are there to stay.

From the terrasse of the Cafe K, serving vegetarian dishes and good coffees, I finished my museum trip spending more time looking at the forest of bodies. Nature not only inspires art but also show to the art and artists in general the right proportions. 

A visit at the Bauhaus Archiv-Museum

I am a very big admirer of the Bauhaus movement, both as a cultural and an artistic/architectural standard and since I move to Germany I rarely miss the opportunity to document their traces, including by an early visit to Dessau. However, the Bauhaus Archives were somehow missed, probably because I was - wrongly - thinking that there must be only about documents and nothing new can be brought to me already extensive knowledge about the movement. However, one Monday of the last week, I decided that I have to change this, and took the bus till the Museum. First, I had a short meditation on the Herkules bridge, taking the full advantage of the sunny morning. The chaise-longues near the river were inviting to stay more, but decided to keep with the schedule this time.

At the entrance, the project re-use in process to be finished, is aimed to show the different layers of the movement and also to offer a new temporary exhibition place.

The irregular and outsanding building of the museum is one of a kind in Berlin. Initially set for Darmstadt but moved to Berlin in the 1970s, it was planned by the founder of Bauhaus, Martin Gropius, who did not live to see it finalized. The local authorities were not that keen to accept it, and was finished thanks to private contributions. It was the first such archive of the Bauhaus and it used most of the archives donated by Gropius himself as well as by other members of the movement. 

In the middle of the green area, with trees and a small park, the building is a patch of concrete white. The entrance is done through a serpent-like platform, called 'Eternity', in the middle of two independent agglomeration of blocks, parallel and equal to each other, united by a middle section. 

From the top of the platform, I was able to see the simple geometry of the two-story structure hosting the 800 square meters of exhibitional space. 

According to the special wishes of Gropius, this unique post-war modernist building should be renovated and changed only by respecting particular technical and artistic directions.

Inside the museum, a new exhibition introduced over 100 new objects added to the Museum collection. Among them, many black and white photography by Nathan Lerner, Josef Hartwig sculptures, collections of wooden toys and studies about colours, sketches by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, or the beautiful paper umbrella by Ferdinand Kramer. 

What I admire about this movement is its extensive interest for almost any topic related to arts, from the fine investigation and reevaluation of the properties of metals - an example being Takehiko Mizutani Study in the property of metals, made of sheets of brass superposed - till the focus on how to better teach arts. The archives are carefully tracing the different stages of the movement of the trajectory of some important representatives, such as Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Oskar Schlemmer or Paul Klee. Not to miss also the Marcel Breuer chairs or the spectacular light installation by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy or the project of Germany's Pavillion at the World Expo 1929. The full archives can be also consulted at the library, upon request.

Interior design and architecture are one of the most famous changes brought by Bauhaus and that changed the faces of many cities from around the world (the White City of Tel Aviv not mentioned in the exhibition is the most famous example). According to Gropius, building means designing life processes and an art of living. He was pledging for 'organic designing of objects in keeping with their own present-day laws, without any romantic goss or fanciful frills', 'limitation to typical primary forms', use of 'colours that anyone can understand', 'simplicity and multiplicity', 'economical utilization of space, material, time and money'.

We can hardly understand the contemporary architecture today without Bauhaus and the Archives are a good inspiration for anyone trying to learn more about, either as a curious tourist or as an artist/architect-in-the making.

Guided tours for art lovers in Berlin

When you don't have too much time to spend in Berlin, you need guidance. Especially if you are an art lover, you may want to see the best and as a creative person, from a different perspective. Leslie Vettermann from Kustwege offers a different category of tours for the tourists interested in the classy Berlin. 

- What kind of tours do you offer? What does it mean an art tour in Berlin? Do you also include galleries?

Kunstwege Berlin offers different kind of tours – tours through museums like the Brücke-Museum Berlin - where you can discover the German Expressionism - the ÄgyptischesMuseum – so many things from the ancient Egyptian time are exhibited there - or the Gemäldegalerie – where you can get to know artworks made by artists like Rembrandt or Rubens.

Guided tours through the Pergamon-Museum are planned. But I also offer tours through the city- always with a focus on art and culture! For example I created a city tour about the famous Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, where a walk over the Museumsinsel is included.

The art tours of Kunstwege Berlin are suitable for kids, school classes or travel groups. On my homepage www.kunstwege-berlin.de it´s possible to book a “turnkey” tour or - when there are special whishes – to make an individual tour.

At the moment I don´t offer tours through galleries, I want to extend my program of art tours through the city.

- What are the languages of the tours?

The guided tours are bookable in German and in English language.

Leslie at Gemaeldegalerie 
Personal collection Leslie Vettermann

- When is the highest season?

I would say the highest season is spring and summer - then a lot of people are visiting our beautiful capital city and you can spend a lot of time outside and discover Berlin. That is why I´m very happy to be able to offer now guided tours through the city to show visitors the cultural beauties and artworks in the city.

Autumn and winter are good seasons to make a tour through the museums and to get to know another side of Berlin’s culture.

- What is your guided tour offers to someone visiting a museum compared with the usual audio and printed guides offered usually?

My tours are always very vivid and true to life, I can respond to questions and bring people in a closer contact to the artworks they see – a printed or an audio guide can´t answer special questions or create the walk through the museum or city in a colorful way. That´s my big advantage and I love it to explain the visitors the cultural treasures of the different museums and exhibitions.

- What are your recommendations for someone visiting Berlin for the summer?

At the moment there´s a great exhibition in the Stiftung Brandenburger Tor – located at the Pariser Platz  - which is called “Daumier is ungeheuer!”. Honoré Daumier was a famous French artist of the 19. Century and he made a lot of ironical-satiric and political lithographic prints for newspapers. It´s worth seeing it! I´m also offering guided tours through this exciting exhibition!

But besides I would recommend going outside to enjoy the summer in Berlin, to sit in a café and perhaps to visit one of the museums- there are really a plenty of fantastic exhibitions!