A Fire Broke Out at Berlin’s $700 Million Humbolt Forum Museum Complex, Injuring a Working and Flooding the City With Black Smoke

A blast at the construction site of the Humboldt Forum museum in
Berlin has caused damage to the building’s entranceway and left one
worker injured. On an otherwise clear blue day, thick black
smoke billowed up above the historic museum island on
Wednesday morning, where the prestigious albeit controversial
museum is under construction.

After two vats of molten tar caught fire and engulfed
construction materials, some 80 firefighters were dispatched
to the site. The fire was quickly brought under control, according
to a spokesperson from the museum. Officials are looking into the
specific causes of the fire more closely, but it seems that it was
not caused by premeditated action.

“Because the tar emitted a lot of smoke, it looked really
dangerous but it only caused surface damage to the museum’s
façade,” Michael Mathis, a spokesman from the museum tells Artnet
News, also confirming that a worker was unfortunately injured from
smoke inhalation. He said that the museum’s planned partial opening
in September will not be delayed due to the incident. The opening
has already been pushed back one year from its original date in
fall 2019.

The spokesman added that the global health situation is
currently posing a much more considerable threat to the
institution’s planned opening, as it has created delays in the
delivery of building material, and impacted the workers’ ability to
be on the site. Berlin is on lockdown, with most businesses closed,
though construction sites are exempt from the ban. A statement from
the museum says that officials will be consulting on the progress
of the construction work in the second half of April.

“The pictures of the fire above the castle portal scared us
all,” the German culture minister Monika Grütters says in a
statement, expressing her thanks to the actors on site “for being
so level-headed and carrying out the evacuation very quickly.”

Set in a rebuilt royal Prussian palace, the Humboldt Forum will
host non-European ethnographic collections and an Asian collection.
The $700 million development project has ignited fierce debate in
Germany on the subject of the restitution of objects acquired
during the colonial era. Germany had several colonies in eastern
Africa, including Namibia, and the country’s state collections
contain Benin Bronzes that are known to have been looted by British
soldiers from Benin City, modern-day Nigeria, in 1897.

The post A Fire Broke Out at Berlin’s $700 Million Humbolt
Forum Museum Complex, Injuring a Working and Flooding the City With
Black Smoke appeared first on artnet News.