Those who had planned a visit to the museum in the Munich Pinakothek der Moderne for the weekend last week found the doors closed on Saturday. On it you can read the information: “Due to safety-related construction defects in the area of the rotunda glass ceiling, the Pinakothek der Moderne will remain closed on Saturday, October 8th and Sunday, October 9th, 2022 as a precautionary measure. We ask for your understanding.” Signed by Bernhard Maaz, Director General of the Bavarian State Painting Collections. The information can also be found on the museum’s website. However, according to the press office of the Pinakothek, it was only published on Friday evening around 6 p.m. after the damage had become known.
On this Monday, when the Pinakothek der Moderne was closed as usual, an expert from the responsible state building authority Munich 1 was on site and examined the glass roof. At first it was said that you could open again. Then in the evening the message came from the building authority: the central pane had cracks. The house must remain closed until further notice, until it has been clarified whether the glass damage on the rotunda dome of the Pinakothek der Moderne poses a danger to visitors. Should this be the case, security measures would be taken as soon as possible.
So the Pinakothek der Moderne has to close again. And above all there are two words: again. Damage to the building has occurred again. Again there is talk of construction defects in connection with the Pinakothek der Moderne. The museum, which has just celebrated its 20th anniversary, has to close again. And again this damage has occurred in the rotunda. But unlike before, this time the causes are not to be found in the masonry, but in the glass roof. It is the third time after 2007 and 2011/12 that the museum, which opened in 2002, has had to close due to damage to the rotunda. You don’t even want to count half-round as well as round anniversary years if things go on like this.
The Pinakothek der Moderne already had to be closed in 2011/12 because cracks appeared in the masonry of the rotunda.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
In 2007, the cracks could be repaired relatively quickly and with as little disruption as possible for the museum visitors. Scaffolding only briefly marred the central rotunda, the construction work was mainly carried out in the morning and evening hours. The second time it took much longer. Swelling bricks and obviously improper connections to the concrete had caused cracks again. They were probably so worrisome that they were considered dangerous to safety. At that time, the four-division house was closed for a good seven months. At the time, that seemed like a damn long time to just about everyone, and a temporary alternative quarters were created for a short time, the Schaustelle. You can only smile mildly today, considering how many years the Neue Pinakothek will probably be closed for its general renovation. At the end of the year there will already be four, and the redevelopment phase has not yet reached its peak. The fact that this should only last until 2025, as announced, is now hardly imaginable.
Since the renovation of the rotunda ten years ago, the Pinakothek der Moderne has been quiet – apart from the fact that its architect, Stefan Braunfels, repeatedly spoke of “scandalous omissions” and “austerity dictates” by the Stoiber cabinet, which was in power at the time. As recently as 2015, in a letter to the editor to the Southgerman newspaper states that he “found around 100 design defects before the handover to the users”, “most of which have not been remedied to this day”. In addition, the daylight lighting was defective, the shading system no longer worked properly after just a few years – “but not because of faulty planning, but because the execution was much too cheap”.
That’s the core of it all: Back then, they wanted a beautiful, contemporary museum. They didn’t just want it to be as cheap as necessary, they wanted it to be as cheap as possible. Every home builder in this country knows that this often causes more costs than adding a shovel right from the start. Only obviously some politicians don’t.