Art and culture will find an appropriate space in the Bryan Adams Gallery. Its design integrates an artist’s studio and exhibition rooms into the harsh environment of past industrial culture. Massive alterations and additions made of concrete, glass and steel have injected new life into the old brick warehouse in Berlin-Oberschöneweide.
Gallery for Bryan Adams
In the mid-2010s, Bryan Adams – musician, composer and photographer – selected the trendy Oberschöneweide neighbourhood that had been rejuvenated by artists as a site for his temporary Berlin subsidiary. The design concept integrates an artist’s studio and gallery spaces into an old warehouse building that lay derelict on the site of the historic AEG factory. The façade of the dilapidated structure was preserved in order to maintain the rudimentary character of the old brick building. Large steel doors with square braces and a projecting steel roof emphasise the former industrial character of the gallery. On the left-hand side a series of studios that are separately accessed from the outside dock onto the long building. Its frontage is likewise illuminated by multi-pane, steel-framed windows.
Offset special-purpose structures are situated on the two-storey basis of these studio row houses constructed of exposed concrete with internal concrete stairs and an open gallery level. They are higher than the warehouse structure, and from their glazed fronts they offer spectacular views of the former industrial landscape. Each of the two long enfilades of the central, longitudinally divided gallery building receives glare-free daylight from above through longitudinal ridge glazing. These skylights protrude above the steel beam structure of the implied flat roof.
A building leaning against the right side of the Bryan Adams Gallery is to receive a new mantle. Behind this, further smooth cubes – glazed on the front side – project from the long masonry façade. They extend the gallery space to the outside like oversized storefront boxes, and illuminate it from the side. Concrete, steel and glass emphasize the rough character of the studio and exhibition building, and preserve the original industrial character of this site.
