Swiss architectural firm Herzog and de Meuron have released new renderings of their Kulturforum (Culture Forum), an extension of the Berlin-based Neue Nationalgalerie.

The future structure, which in 2016 was selected to become the city’s Museum of the 20th Century, will be a stylistic hybrid, taking inspiration from public and private buildings like warehouses, barnyards, and railway concourses as well as the nearby Matthäus-kirche (Matthew's Church).

Likening the Kulturforum to a temple, Herzog and de Meuron said it would be a place of "silence and reflection" that would help to increase the connectivity of the area’s cultural institutions.

"Our urban concept for the Kulturforum is a concept of density, not emptiness," said Jacques Herzog, co-director of the architecture studio. "It organizes an interaction of precisely related buildings."

Commenting on the design, the president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, said: "This design considers museum architecture with a completely new approach and will write history."

Construction on the building is expected to commence in summer 2019.