The museum will store and exhibit the works of a married couple of sculptors Anna Kubach-Wilmsen and Wolfgang Kubach - their foundation ordered the construction. Working for them, Ando performed in an unexpected role: a researcher and "restorer" of works of folk architecture. Working with historical buildings is nothing new to him (suffice it to recall two of his Venetian reconstructions of exhibition spaces for François Pinault), but in this case it is almost about doing architectural ethnography.
The museum building in Bad Münster is a half-timbered barn of the late 18th century moved there from a neighboring village, a typical farm building in this part of Germany. To restore parts lost over the centuries, Ando used the surviving plans of the building from 1785. At the same time, of course, there was no question of scientific restoration: the architect added the mezzanine floor needed by the museum and increased the number of windows needed for natural lighting of the interior. They did not fill the wooden frame of the half-timbered house at the ends of the building with clay, as it was before, but installed glazing behind it: so it turned into a kind of sunscreen. Around the barn, walls of rough concrete have been erected, limiting the inner courtyards - the inner one, filled with water, and the outer one, covered with gravel - also serving for the exhibition of sculptures. Parts of the fence of the courtyards do not adjoin each other tightly, which made it possible to create a connection between the spaces of the museum and the natural environment.
The opening of the museum is scheduled for August 14, 2010. The first exhibition will show 65 works by four sculptors, created from stone over the past 40 years.
