A journey through time to the old Tiergarten district
From spring 2025, the art library will take a journey back in time to the past of the Kulturforum. On the first floor, an exhibition recalls the art-loving neighborhood in the Tiergarten district around Matthäikirchplatz 100 years ago.
Image gallery
Short biographies of formerly famous residents paint a picture of a fascinating creative scene and cultural bohemianism - and its brutal destruction after 1933.
Today, museums, libraries and the Philharmonie at the Kulturforum form a unique architectural ensemble of modernism - soon to be supplemented by the "berlin modern" museum for 20th century art, which is currently under construction.
Very few people know that today's Kulturforum was already a forum for culture and the dawn of modernity at the beginning of the 20th century. However, things looked very different back then:
The Tiergarten district was one of the most elegant residential and commercial districts in Berlin. Wealthy entrepreneurs, cultural figures and intellectuals lived around St. Matthew's Church in magnificent apartment buildings, "sandstone houses in the French villa style", whose apartments had up to 15 rooms.
The Art Library has been researching this forgotten Atlantis of modernity for several years. Discover the previously invisible fascination of the place: you will meet people who lived for the arts and with the arts, and whose passion everyone owes a lot to today.
A special exhibition by the Art Library - Berlin State Museums
