After nearly twenty years of planning, David Chipperfield Architects have completed James Simon Galerie, a major new addition to Berlin's Museum Island. Sharing a small plot of land with world-famous cultural institutions, including Karl Friedrich Schinkel's Altes Museum and Friedrich August Stüler's Neues Museum (for which Chipperfield provided an interior restoration in 2009), James Simon Galerie is a $150 million addition suitable for welcoming the throngs of tourists and locals  alike that visit the island each year. 

The Galerie is a stunning example of what critic Oliver Wainwright has called the "restrained opulence" typical of David Chipperfield's work, beginning with the spindly proportions of the white marble columns towards the entrance and followed by the monumental scale of the entryway. According to the firm, "the architectural language of the James-Simon-Galerie adopts existing elements of the Museum Island, primarily from the external architecture, such as built topography, colonnades and outdoor staircases, making reference to Schinkel, Stüler and the other architects involved in the creation of Museum Island. The materiality of the building in reconstituted stone with natural stone aggregate blends in with the rich material palette of the Museum Island with its limestone, sandstone and rendered façades, while smooth in-situ concrete dominates the interior spaces." 

Beyond its bold visual presence, the Galerie provides much needed amenities to the island, including a 300-seat auditorium, a shop, a cafe and a 6,500 square foot gallery, all of which connect to the surrounding museums underground through a vast network of hallways. 

Even the name of the building is a significant gesture: James Simon was one of Berlin's most generous patrons, a Jewish art collector that bequeathed his collection at the beginning of the 20th century whose name was long erased from history during the Nazi era.