Eight cruciform columns, two on each length placed so as to avoid corners, support a square pre-stressed steel roof plate 1.8 meters (5 ft 11 in) thick and painted black.

Mies' office studied this cantilever extensively in various scaled models in order to ensure its structural stability as well as the seeming flatness of the roof plate.

The lower story serves primarily as housing for the gallery's permanent collection, though it also includes a library, offices, and a shop and café, and totals about 10,000 m2 (110,000 sq ft) of space.

Though initial structural challenges had to be dealt with, the resulting pavilion typology became integral to Mies' architectural lexicon, in many ways the epitome of his universal conception of space.

The Bacardí Building was abandoned in September 1960 due to general political unrest in Cuba, but at the same time, two other museum commissions were brought to Mies' office.

A modest initial plan was drawn for the structure, but later that year Mies decided to reconfigure the unbuilt Bacardí project to fit Schaefer's program as he wished to see it built.

Though the Schweinfurt project never came to fruition, the reductive exercise of continual reconfiguration allowed for the perfection of Mies' expression in Berlin, and the Neue Nationalgalerie remains as the sole built form of the initial tripartite conception.

Its smooth granite flooring reflects the warm natural light that floods the space, creating hazy shadow and making curatorial efforts notoriously complicated.

[15] Yet smaller works had to be shown on moveable freestanding walls or hanging partitions, making a curator's ability to effectively differentiate spaces difficult.

[9] Having had no thorough modernization since its inauguration, the Neue Nationalgalerie required upgrades to its air-conditioning, lighting, security, accessibility, electricity, visitor facilities and the behind-the-scenes infrastructure for moving art.

Archival material dating from the construction at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, helped the architects remain true to Mies's design.

The collection owns masterpieces of artists like Pablo Picasso, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Joan Miró, Wassily Kandinsky and Barnett Newman.