Cold War Museum Berlin

The Cold War Museum Berlin is centrally located in Berlin-Mitte on the boulevard Unter den Linden between the Brandenburg Gate and the Humboldt Forum. On two floors and over 1,600 sqm, the High-Tech Museum 4.0 illuminates the different facets of the Cold War from 1945 to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 and makes history tangible across generations with interactive and virtual applications and selected exhibits. In planning and implementing the exhibition architecture for the museum, particular emphasis was placed on sustainability and recycling of the original building fabric. Until August 2019, the two floors of the office and commercial building at Unter den Linden 14, where the exhibition is presented today, housed the gallery of a German automobile brand. The spatial layout of the presentation areas, staircases, galleries and access routes was largely retained, and the main part of the former fixtures was integrated into the new concept. When choosing the companies involved, attention was paid to regionality, and the materials used were tested for their sustainability. To enter the museum's foyer, visitors symbolically walk through an "Iron Curtain". The design was created by the Ukrainian artist Vanda Sakhatska. The installation takes up the entire street-side window front and consists of 20 steel elements. The upper part is perforated with the portraits of a selection of politicians who were active in the Cold War era. The lower half shows life-size silhouettes of people united under the peace sign of the "Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament". In contrast to the cold, technical, industrial steel of the "Iron Curtain", the floor of the entrance area shines in bright red. The floor in the first section of the exhibition is designed in a black and white chessboard pattern: as living chess pieces, visitors are thus immersed in the history of the Cold War. Contemporary documentary film material, photos, animations and eyewitness videos can be called up on interactive monitors, while selected exhibits are presented alternately in display cases. The monitors are embedded in the walls, which are clad with coated, rust-red patinated Corten steel and which continue the motif of the "Iron Curtain" like a red thread. In the deliberately reduced lighting of the room with its dark ceilings, the patina of the material, reminiscent of ageing industrial plants, unfolds its full effect and symbolic power, especially in the interplay with the graffiti-covered wall areas. The walls of the staircase leading to the other exhibition areas are also covered with elaborate thematic graffiti. An analogous material, presentation and design concept can be found on the upper floor. The view from the upper steps towards the ground floor inevitably falls on a double portrait of Nikita S. Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy, which with the slogan "Two sides, the same story" picks up the red thread of the museum concept and refers to the international complexity of the Cold War era.