IMD _Institute of Media and Design
copyright _IMD
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN | Bachelor thesis project | NEW BAUHAUS MUSEUM Weimar
Weimar is the birthplace of the Bauhaus movement. Six of the fourteen years of its short existence – 1919 to 1925 – lie in the Weimar Era. It ended with the banishment by the National Socialist German Workers Party. It can only be explained in the context of 20th Century German history, that not until 1995 was one made aware that the most influential School of 20th Century Art, Design and Architecture has its roots here by a small Museum within the rich museum landscape of the Weimar Republic.
In Weimar "Bauhaus" means an especially important age of cultural innovation, which is part of a long series of comparable upheavals and constitutes the "Weimar Cosmos". The Bauhaus Museum in Weimar is a reflection of the ambivalent development of the modern age in Weimar, and its content focuses on the connection between the 20th and 21st Century to the present. At the same time, the museum has the task, to trace the Bauhaus – this eminently influential school of modern art, design and architecture – back to the aesthetic projects of the time between 1800 and 1900 and offer links to the individual collections and monuments in Weimar. Because of this, the new Bauhaus Museum in Weimar is not considered a challenge in museum design, but instead a project, from which the city of Weimar will no doubt profit from culturally.
The location for the new Bauhaus Museum at the Weimarhallen Park directly in the neighbourhood of the former "Gauforum", a monumental ensemble from the time of National Socialism is significant in this respect. It can be developed into modern quarters from an areal perspective by the institutional interplay between the residing facilities, the new Bauhaus Museum, the Classic Endowment, the Weimar City Museum, the exhibition in the so-called Gauforum, the current location of the Bureau of Regional Administration, and the new Museum of Modern Art.
The new Bauhaus Museum should assume a clear position in the urban and current ambivalent political environment of Weimar. The plan is to design a culturally oriented museum as a place of experiment and permanent transformation, as a lab and studio of the current intersection of art, design and architecture. In addition to the central exhibition rooms for the exhibits of the early Bauhaus era, including a small cinema and a media black box, a viewable storage area will be integrated, predominantly oriented as a place for in-depth learning for pupils, students and scientists.
Studio, workshop and seminar rooms tie together the debate between the cognitive legacy of the Bauhaus period directly and virtually to the present: These spaces serve the development of exhibitions, performances as well as dance and theatre projects. The architectural developments, which bear a similar meaning today as they did in the 1920’s industrialisation of the building process, should flow into the development of the form and design.
The sustained international success of the Bauhaus idea was not actually founded on the development of an identifiable style, but on the impartial and open-minded confrontation with the technological innovations and inventions of the 20’s (reinforced concrete construction, industrial mass production, electrification, automobile and aircraft construction).
Cooperation project with the Institute for structural design
Directed by: Prof. Matthias Karch with Dr. Carolin Hoefler and Prof. Dr. Harald Kloft