The geometrically clear architecture by Prof. Heike Hanada (Berlin) includes – in a minimalistic concrete cube – five levels that converge in two-storied open spaces. Visitors can access the museum from two sides: from the city level via a generous entrance hall – or from the adjacent Weimarhallenpark via a large terrace on the ground floor.
The façade is characterised by 24 narrow panels of opaque, frosted glass. They float freely without a frame and form a regular horizontal rhythm which is superimposed by a linear grid of fine black lines which refract unevenly. Horizontal light strips around the body of the structure provide illumination at nighttime.
The entrance hall is the starting point for all the main paths in the museum. Visitors quickly gain orientation by means of a cascading staircase placed within a cleverly structured coordinate system. Thanks to horizontal and diagonal lines of view in relation to the adjacent open spaces, the functions of the individual areas are immediately discernible. The floor and walls of the hall correspond with the materiality and haptic quality of the exterior concrete base of the museum.
The Bauhaus Museum Weimar is being built at the edge of the Weimarhallenpark, directly opposite the National Socialist “Gauforum”. The urban and historically significant location of the new building offers a unique possibility to attractively develop the district between the Goetheplatz, Nordvorstadt and the Bahnhofsviertel (area around the station) and to give it a cultural perspective.
Three time periods of modernism converge in a historically unique way in a focal point of sorts at the new Bauhaus Museum: the so-called green, cultural and sports axis to the west of the new building as a large “cultural project” of the Weimar Republic, the monumental architecture of the “Gauforum” from the Nazi period as well as the ensuing handling of the existing architectural testimonies by the GDR including urban planning under a socialist banner.
The museum offers the perspective to create a lively cultural district spanning the period of the late 19th century, the ambivalent history of modernism, down to the present day. It will also be one of the most important strategic points in the “topography of modernism” – a network connecting both historical and memorial sites all over Weimar.
