BAUHAUS MUSEUM WEIMAR
Status: International Competition 2011, 1. phase
Location: Weimar, Germany
Size: 4.000 sqm
Program: Art Museum with Archives, Cinema and Cafe
The Strip
The new Bauhaus museum is located at the juncture of Weimarhallenpark, the Gauforum complex and the finer grain of the historic town center. By weaving together these contrasting elements our proposal creates coherence to this fragmented area of Weimar.
The museum faces the challenge of standing out next to the large scale of the Gauforum by creating an axis independent of the existing buildings around it. This programmatic ‘Strip’ of activities stretches from Karl-Liebknecht-Straße to Asbachstraße. By strategically placing the new 98m long and 12m high volume on this 21m wide strip, two contrasting urban squares are created: a park “Triangle” with lush vegetation towards the residential neighborhood and a new urban square towards Karl-Liebknecht-Straße. Here the programmatic Strip works as a “red carpet” guiding visitors to the main entrance.
At ground level the new Bauhaus museum creates the intimacy of the old town fabric, while the 1800m2 flexible gallery space above refers to the large scale buildings of the Gauforum. This combination creates a building that is at once familiar reflecting the different scales and character of the context, as well as unexpected.
Museum
By cantilevering the gallery floor above - “lifting” the bulk of the building 5m in the air – the ground floor is opened to the city around it. Freed from the imposition of the “closed” gallery boxes, the museum’s ground level becomes a new zone for public facilities – café, foyer, shop, exhibitions, openings, events, specially commissioned art as well as Bauhaus education and performances. These activities will also spill out into the new ‘Triangle’ park, the Weimarhallenpark and the ‘Strip’ towards Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, creating a transparency and porosity to the museum.
The foyer works as a lively urban plaza, allowing connections from the city and park to pedagogical spaces, cinema, and the galleries above. A spiral stair leads naturally down to the viewable storage depots in the basement.
Like the Bauhaus toy designed by Alma Siedhoff-Buscher (1923), the galleries can be easily changed allowing an almost infinite combination of forms and spaces. The new Bauhaus ‘Strip’ of programmatic volumes creates a “simplicity in multiplicity” that is at once familiar as well as unique.
