Berna's Kunstmuseum and Zentrum Paul Klee: A Dual Museum Experience

Nina Zimmer, director of the foundation uniting Kunstmuseum Bern and Zentrum Paul Klee since 2016, emphasizes the variety of their 2019 program, spanning contemporary art, 19th-century Swiss art, Bauhaus modernism, music, and literature. Kunstmuseum Bern, founded in 1809 and housed since 1879 in a neoclassical building by Eugen Stettler and Gottlieb Hebler, offers 3,500 square meters of exhibition space and eight centuries of art, with highlights including Ferdinand Hodler and Meret Oppenheim. Zentrum Paul Klee, designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 2005, features a sinusoidal roof inspired by the region's hills and houses 690 works by Paul Klee donated by his daughter-in-law Livia Klee-Meyer in 1997, plus additional donations. The center's dynamic program includes 'Klee & Friends,' exploring Klee's contemporaries like Kandinsky, Arp, and Picasso, and 'Ecstasy,' a non-synchronous exhibition juxtaposing Klee with contemporary artists such as Marina Abramović, Louise Bourgeois, Marlene Dumas, Meret Oppenheim, Auguste Rodin, Henri Michaux, and Andy Warhol. The building's west-facing steel-and-glass facade uses motorized fabric screens to filter natural light, crucial for protecting Klee's works requiring 50-100 lux. The site also includes an agricultural area, a path to the Schöngrün restaurant, Paul Klee's grave at Schosshalden cemetery, a sculpture park, and a marshland.