Museum James-Simon-Galerie in Berlin

You're standing at the James Simon Gallery, the new front door of Berlin's Museum Island. It sits between the Neues Museum and the Kupfergraben, the western arm of the Spree. Take a look at that broad staircase. It climbs in three flights to a raised plateau. Up there stands a row of seventy white concrete columns. They're almost nine metres tall, yet less than thirty centimetres thick. Pretty slender, right?