_DSC9723
Museum for Applied Art
Frankfurt am Main, Germany / Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP / 1979 - 1985
The Frankfurt Museum for Applied Art (Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt), one of the most important international museums of its kind, was founded in 1877. The current collections embrace 5,000 years of the history of different cultures and include European handcrafts from the 12th to the 21st century, design, book art, graphics, Islamic art, as well as art and handcrafts from East Asia. The works are distinguished by unique aesthetics and technically masterful use of material. Light flows through the spacious rooms of the modern Richard Meier building, which invites visitors to interact and communicate. The rooms constantly reveal new perspectives on historical exhibits and modern spatial structure. Numerous special exhibitions use the dialogue with the architecture to create surprising presentations and reflect the multifaceted contents of the collection between tradition and the avant-garde. Meier’s world-famous museum building was completed in 1985. The architecture integrates the classic villa of the museum, in which the proportions of a middle-class summerhouse serve as the standard for the three connected white cubes of the new building. In order to put the villa in the spotlight in respect to content, it is to be invigorated by a new concept for its interior, which should make it a new meeting point in Frankfurt’s cultural life.
The character of the surrounding environment had a decisive impact on the form of this building, not only in terms of the topography but also in respect of the local doppel villa topology. Designed as a part of a new cultural district on the banks of the river Main – the Museumsufer – this arts museum was a transitional work in that it was part of the conversion of a residential quarter to public-institutional use. The accommodation of the program within the available site enabled the remainder of the area to be treated as a park, open to the surrounding community. Articulated pathways and vistas enabled the site to be reorganized in such a way as to overcome the barrier formed by the villas lining the Main River. The skewed organization of the plan was based on two intersecting geometries, on an orthogonal grid deriving from the Villa Metzler and on a discrepant second grid taken from the alignment of the river. The Villa Metzler is incorporated into the new composition by being inscribed into an open quadrant of its 16 square orthogonal grid. This initial grid was then overlaid by a second grid of exactly the same size, but rotated 3.5 degrees to correspond with the embankment. The superimposition of these two networks generates the formal order of the work throughout. The Villa Metzler’s basic dimensions and the proportions of the villa’s windows became the basis of the square metal panel module and fenestration of the new building. The general organization of the museum space gives the work a didactic character, with the visitor proceeding counter clockwise through a prescribed series of spaces, outlining the history of European decorative art. Specific openings are framed in various ways so as to sustain a sense of discovery through different apertures, while always permitting the objects themselves to relate to the scale of their immediate environment.
_DSC9723
Museum for Applied Art
Frankfurt am Main, Germany / Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP / 1979 - 1985
The Frankfurt Museum for Applied Art (Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt), one of the most important international museums of its kind, was founded in 1877. The current collections embrace 5,000 years of the history of different cultures and include European handcrafts from the 12th to the 21st century, design, book art, graphics, Islamic art, as well as art and handcrafts from East Asia. The works are distinguished by unique aesthetics and technically masterful use of material. Light flows through the spacious rooms of the modern Richard Meier building, which invites visitors to interact and communicate. The rooms constantly reveal new perspectives on historical exhibits and modern spatial structure. Numerous special exhibitions use the dialogue with the architecture to create surprising presentations and reflect the multifaceted contents of the collection between tradition and the avant-garde. Meier’s world-famous museum building was completed in 1985. The architecture integrates the classic villa of the museum, in which the proportions of a middle-class summerhouse serve as the standard for the three connected white cubes of the new building. In order to put the villa in the spotlight in respect to content, it is to be invigorated by a new concept for its interior, which should make it a new meeting point in Frankfurt’s cultural life.
The character of the surrounding environment had a decisive impact on the form of this building, not only in terms of the topography but also in respect of the local doppel villa topology. Designed as a part of a new cultural district on the banks of the river Main – the Museumsufer – this arts museum was a transitional work in that it was part of the conversion of a residential quarter to public-institutional use. The accommodation of the program within the available site enabled the remainder of the area to be treated as a park, open to the surrounding community. Articulated pathways and vistas enabled the site to be reorganized in such a way as to overcome the barrier formed by the villas lining the Main River. The skewed organization of the plan was based on two intersecting geometries, on an orthogonal grid deriving from the Villa Metzler and on a discrepant second grid taken from the alignment of the river. The Villa Metzler is incorporated into the new composition by being inscribed into an open quadrant of its 16 square orthogonal grid. This initial grid was then overlaid by a second grid of exactly the same size, but rotated 3.5 degrees to correspond with the embankment. The superimposition of these two networks generates the formal order of the work throughout. The Villa Metzler’s basic dimensions and the proportions of the villa’s windows became the basis of the square metal panel module and fenestration of the new building. The general organization of the museum space gives the work a didactic character, with the visitor proceeding counter clockwise through a prescribed series of spaces, outlining the history of European decorative art. Specific openings are framed in various ways so as to sustain a sense of discovery through different apertures, while always permitting the objects themselves to relate to the scale of their immediate environment.