Hartmut Dorgerloh, General Director of the Humboldt Forum. Photo: Kay Nietfeld/dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images.
It will open digitally on Wednesday in the reconstructed Berlin Palace, the Baroque-style institution which cost €677 million ($820 million) to complete and covers an area of more than 320,000 square feet. The building is home to four distinct but collaborating partners: the Berlin State Museums together with Berlin Kulturprojekte, which are managing locally focused exhibitions; the Humboldt University; the Humboldt Forum Foundation; and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the ethnographic and Asian art collections.
Ahead of its opening, we spoke with the general director of the Humboldt Forum, Hartmut Dorgerloh, about the multi-faceted project, including some of the pain points and growing frustration with Germany’s handling of its colonial past,