Potsdam’s Barberini Museum rises from the ashes
Rome Paris Angela Merkel
Philanthropist Hasso Plattner financed the rebuilding of the Barberini Palace. The new museum will house the vast private collection of the German tech entrepreneur.
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La croix international
Angela Merkel, Bill Gates… there was a long and illustrious list of invitees for Friday’s opening of the completely new Barberini Museum in Potsdam financed by Hasso Plattner, co-founder of the German IT giant SAP AG. Aged 72, the gray-haired entrepreneur paid for the reconstruction of the Barberini Palace, which houses part of his personal art collection.

Plattner owns one of the most significant private collections of impressionist landscapes, including works by Renoir, Monet, and Sisley.

“I bought my first painting in 1972 and the collection just grew and I have never sold anything,” he explains. “The paintings need to stay together, which is why I had the idea twenty years ago of founding a museum.”

The project has given new life to a major Potsdam monument where the kings of Prussia once lived. Built during the 18th century by Frederick II of Prussia on the model of the Barberini Palace in Rome, the building was completely destroyed by bombs in 1945. Now, it has risen again on the former market place with its sandstone columns and three floors of exhibition space.

“Its reconstruction is a very significant event for the city,” notes Michael Philipp, conservator at the museum. “And it is rare that a new museum opens with so many loans at such an international level.”

For its opening, the Barberini Palace is presenting an exhibition reflecting its founder’s taste for impressionist landscapes. It includes paintings from museums around the world such as the Orangerie in Paris and Rodin Museum with forty paintings by Claude Monet.

“The kings of Prussia did not like impressionism resulting in their rarity in Berlin museum collections,” notes Plattner. “Personally, I love them.”

The philanthropist admits a weakness for 20th-century German art, represented here by Liebermann, Beckmann, and Nolde. The exhibition also includes nearly 70 paintings by artists from the former East Germany such as Wolfgang Mattheuer and Arno Rink.

It also includes several paintings that will be displayed this autumn as part of an exhibition on the role of artists under the German Democratic Republic.

Plattner himself grew up in West Berlin not far from The Wall and from Potsdam, of which he speaks with emotion. Having established a university institute and financed the baroque facade of the seat of regional government, he has made the Barberini Museum his ultimate gift to the city.