Paul Klee Center

The center was opened in 2005 at the initiative of the surgeon and patron Maurice Edmond Müller as a spin-off of the Kunstmuseum Bern, with which it shares the museum's management (in the person of the German art historian Nina Zimmer). That year, the Kunstmuseum relocated its collection of 4,000 paintings, watercolors, and drawings by Paul Klee to a new building designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano.

The collection, approximately 40% of Klee's pictorial oeuvre, is largely based on the works that he never sold because he considered them part of his personal memory. In 1997, his daughter-in-law Livia Klee-Meyer donated her inheritance of nearly 690 works to the city and the canton of Bern. The family and the Paul Klee Foundation, established in 1947, donated additional works and documents, and lent another 200 paintings. Acquisitions and donations from private collections contributed to the formation of a very large collection of the artist's works. The decision to build the museum in Schöngrün/Vermont at the eastern edge of Bern was made in 1998, and the same year Renzo Piano received the commission. In 2005, the building was completed with 1,800 m² of exhibition space. It takes the form of three waves that blend into the landscape.

Referring to the diverse artistic activities of Paul Klee, the center does not limit itself to the presentation of Klee's visual work, but it also serves as a platform for music, theater, dance, literature, and interdisciplinary forms of artistic expression. Here operates the Summer Academy Foundation; outside the exhibition spaces, the center has a chamber music room, children's workshops, meeting rooms, a sculpture park, and the Creaviva children's museum.

Karen Wuyts