Description
Diagonally across from the picturesque Petite France quarter and in sight of Strasbourg’s old city with the cathedral towering above it, the location of the museum (whose collection represents a cross-section of the art of the last 150 years) was decisive for its design. The imposing volume results not least out of the intention to create a counterpart for the headquarters of the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights.
The museum consists essentially of two prisms on their sides that are linked to each other by means of a glass hall 104 metres long and 25 metres high that towers over the entire complex. While the convex part of the building with its white Eternit cladding picks up the sober formal language of the new town behind it, the red granite of the monumentally structured show side facing the river is a reference to the city’s historic buildings of red sandstone from the Vosges. The museum thus fulfils the function of an urban hinge. But as a secular and modern counterpart to the cathedral (to which Adrien Fainsilber refers by means of numerous artistically staged views), it seeks above all to be a public space and a place of community. It is not by chance that the dominant form of the glass hall – originally supposed to be open to the public – is reminiscent of the halved nave of a cathedral.
Spanned by bridges, the hall is accessed from the north. On both sides of it on the ground floor are the relatively low-ceilinged exhibition rooms of varying sizes; their artificial lighting is based on aircraft lighting systems, according to the architect. Only the western part of the upper storey contains museum rooms of varying sizes lit by a combination of artificial and natural light from above. Their arrangement in enfilade is interrupted by wall pieces placed transversally. On the side facing the river, an enormous panorama terrace (including a restaurant) provides a marvellous view of the city and thereby emphasizes the urban aspect as the primary design-determining factor of this architecture.
Bauwelt 44/1998, p. 2454 (Amber Sayah) • France musées récents (le moniteur architecture amc), Paris, 1999, pp. 84-89 • Frank Maier-Solgk, Die neuen Museen, Cologne, 2002, pp. 212-219
Drawings
Site plan
Ground floor
Upper floor
Sketch of the circular tour with views to the outside
Cross section
Photos
General view from the southeast across the River Ill
View of the glazed hall
Originally published in: Paul von Naredi-Rainer, Museum Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2004.