Berlin's rich cultural landscape gained a new architectural feature this week in the form of a private museum, the Tchoban Foundation Museum for Architectural Drawing. Architect and owner Sergei Tchoban has built extensively in both Russia and Germany since co-founding the Russian practice SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov in the 1990s.
His studio is perhaps best known for Berlin's DomAquarée hotel, with its massive foyer fish tank, and the Federation complex currently under construction in MIBC Moscow City, which is set to feature the tallest building in Europe.
With 490 sq m of exhibition and archive space, Tchoban's Berlin museum is a little more modest in size. It is located on the border between Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg in a 19th-century former brewery complex called the Pfefferberg, now best known for housing the Aedes architecture gallery.
Situated on a small sliver of land next to a firewall on the edge of the complex, it consists of a series of stacked and skewed cast-concrete boxes topped with a storey of glass, which lightens the overall aspect of the predominantly windowless façade.
Tchoban built the museum to house his extensive collection of historical architectural drawings and graphics, and to reflect this the sandy-coloured façade is covered in an ornamental relief of abstract marks that appear scratched into the surface.
The first exhibition on show, 'Piranesi's Paestum', is a fine selection of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's architectural drawings, on loan from London's Sir John Soane's Museum, which is in turn showing 'Northern Vision: Master Drawings from the Tchoban Foundation' from 21 June.
The museum's architect and owner is Sergei Tchoban of the Russian practice SPEECH Tchoban & Kuznetsov, who has built extensively in both Russia and Germany since co-founding his own practice in the 1990s
With 490 sq m of exhibition and archive space, the museum is relatively modest in size
The Tchoban Foundation museum is located on the border between Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg in a 19th-century former brewery complex called Pfefferberg
The architects made the most of the site's modest size; the structure spans five floors
The sandy-coloured interior walls are complemented by warm timber doors and details
The structure was made of stacked and skewed cast concrete boxes topped with a storey of glass, which lightens the overall aspect of the predominantly windowless façade
The glass box at the top offers great views of Berlin
The museum was built to house Tchoban's extensive collection of historical architectural drawings
The first exhibition on show at the museum, 'Piranesi's Paestum', is a fine selection of Piranesi's drawings on loan from Sir John Soane's Museum in London
ADDRESS
Tchoban Foundation
Museum for Architectural Drawing
Christinenstraße 18 a
10119 Berlin
-
‘I'm endlessly fascinated by the nude’: Somaya Critchlow’s intimate and confident drawings are on show in London‘Triple Threat’ at Maximillian William gallery in London is British artist Somaya Critchlow’s first show dedicated solely to drawing
-
North Studio’s Rahul Bhushan: ‘I’m just a simple boy with a big dream – to make the world a better place’North Studio, from the Himalayan region of Himachal in India, tells us about its vision of ‘low-impact environments’ and inspiring architecture
-
Year in review: top 10 audio acquisitions of 2024, as chosen by Wallpaper’s Jonathan BellThe best audio technology of 2024, from pocketable earbuds to room-filling speakers
-
A Berlin park atop an office building offers a new model of urban landscapingA Berlin park and office space by Grüntuch Ernst Architeken and landscape architects capattistaubach offer a symbiotic relationship between urban design and green living materials
-
Private gallery Stiftung Froehlich in Stuttgart stands out with an organic, cloud-shaped topBlue-sky thinking elevates Stiftung Froehlich, a purpose-built gallery for the Froehlich Foundation’s art collection near Stuttgart by Gabriele Glöckler
-
A walk through Potsdamer Platz: Europe’s biggest construction site 30 years onIn 2024, Potsdamer Platz celebrates its 30th anniversary and Jonathan Glancey reflects upon the famous postmodernist development in Berlin, seen here through the lens of photographer Rory Gardiner
-
The Lake House is a tree-inspired retreat making the most of Berlin’s natureThe Lake House by Sigurd Larsen is a nature-inspired retreat in west Berlin, surrounded by trees and drawing on their timber nature
-
Remembering Alexandros Tombazis (1939-2024), and the Metabolist architecture of this 1970s eco-pioneerBack in September 2010 (W*138), we explored the legacy and history of Greek architect Alexandros Tombazis, who this month celebrates his 80th birthday.
-
All hail the power of concrete architecture‘Concrete Architecture’ surveys more than a century’s worth of the world’s most influential buildings using the material, from brutalist memorials to sculptural apartment blocks
-
Three Object Apartment embraces raw concrete honesty in the heart of AthensThree Object Apartment by DeMachinas is a raw concrete home in Athens, which confidently celebrates its modernist bones
-
Giovanni Michelucci’s dramatic concrete church in the Italian DolomitesGiovanni Michelucci’s concrete Church of Santa Maria Immacolata in the Italian Dolomites is a reverently uplifting memorial to the victims of a local disaster
