One of Germany’s premier collections of modern art is now reopened in the city of Duisburg thanks to an expansion project from Herzog & de Meuron.

Featuring an additional 2,500 square meters (26,900 square feet) of exhibition and gallery space, the firm expanded on its original 1999 reworking of an abandoned 19th-century mill located at the confluence between the Rhone and Rhine rivers about an hour north of Cologne.

The added space will house the museum’s Ströher Collection in a new four-story building connected to the existing mill through a series of bridges that run through the surviving grain silos, which provide brilliantly lit terracotta interiors and activate the entirety of the historic structure. 

Three separate elevations help define the brick volume situated amongst existing inner harbor buildings and punctuated by a square lined with 35 sycamore trees. 

Per the architects: “The extension accords with the sequence of impressive historical brick structures lining the dockside. Consequently, the new structure completes the existing museum and harbor basin in a visually appropriate way, and forms a suitable conclusion to the row of buildings along the harbor basin.” 

The new space allows for the presentation of a more cogent timeline of the development of German art after World War II, an integral part of the MKM’s institutional mission according to director Walter Smerling, who said the added galleries represented a "priceless asset for the artistic landscape of the Federal Republic of Germany."

Tickets to the reopened galleries start around €12. More information about the museum can be found here.