The new space, called "Garden Halls", complements the existing museum complex, made up of buildings from the late 19th and late 20th centuries. (the last until now was the construction of 1990 by Gustav Peichl). In order not to disturb the established image of the building, the architects placed the new building under the lawn of the garden of the same name, which surrounds the Shtedelevsky Museum.
You can get there from the main lobby. Going down the stairs, the visitor finds himself in a white space with an area of about 3,000 m2, the floors of which are supported by only 12 columns. Thanks to its free layout, the room is suitable for various types and types of exhibitions, which is especially important because of its purpose: the exhibition of works of the latest art.
The main thing both in the interior and when looking at the Garden Halls from the outside, that is, from above, is their overlap. They have the outlines of a shallow dome, in which "portholes" are arranged - round openings with a diameter of 1.5 to 2.5 m. From above, the entire space between them is covered with turf, so the roof of the new building looks like another exhibit of the museum, an installation in the spirit of op-art …
The "portholes" provide the halls underground with natural light, but direct sunlight is filtered out. It is also possible to completely darken these round windows. In the interior, they are complemented by LEDs of cold and warm white shades, allowing to illuminate each piece as the curator intended. The first design of the exposition was made by the architects of the Berlin bureau "Kuehn Malvezzi", who took the second place in the competition for the project of the museum reconstruction.
For the Shtedelev Museum, the opening of a new wing and a restored main complex (the total renovation budget was 52 million euros) coincided with another “premiere”: the public is presented for the first time with a collection of the latest art, of which 1200 works have been acquired in recent years (of which 600 canvases were received permanent storage from the Deutsche Bank collection). Now, in the famous Frankfurt Museum, one can get acquainted with the history of Western painting as a continuous process from the 14th century to the present day.
N. F.
