Description

“Grimmwelt”, the new Brothers Grimm Museum on the Weinberg in Kassel, aims to communicate the life and work of the Brothers Grimm to as broad a range of visitors as possible. The linguists Jacob Grimm (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859) spent thirty years in Kassel. Among the most valuable objects they left the city are their personal hand-annotated copies of their fairy tales, the Kinder- und Hausmärchen, which were listed as UNESCO World Documentary Heritage in 2005.

The new building is a kind of traversable stone sculpture and looks from outside as if the architects had simply extended the vineyards of the Weinberg a little further uphill. The architectural idea is best appreciated from the bottom of the Weinberg, where the stepped form of the new building with its facade of irregular courses of Grauinger travertine looks much like another retaining wall of vineyard terracing, with a staircase leading from one terrace to the next – although the building actually conceals 2650 m² of usable space within it. The museum is intended to look as if it is a “natural” part of the vineyard. Two staircases lead to a 2000 m² walkable roof area that offers expansive views over Kassel and the surrounding area and up to Wilhelmshöhe and Hercules. This is a public space, accessible to everyone day and night. As such, the site, which was once occupied by the Henschel family villa, destroyed in World War II, is given back to the public visitors to the park.

Inside, the museum is more restrained: the foyer, museum shop and café have white walls and light terrazzo flooring with light oak cladding on the ceiling and some walls, as well as glass balustrades on the stair gallery and in front of the south-facing panorama window. The different pitches of the outer staircases leading onto and over the roof are also apparent in the ceiling of the foyer, shop and café. The resulting interiors are light, bright and pleasant, but the rooms lack the unmistakable character one might have expected of the museum. But perhaps it is precisely this neutrality, this deliberate lack of additional dramatics, that is needed in order not to overwhelm visitors before and after their visit to the exhibition (designed by Holzer Kobler architects), where visitors are taken on a scenographic journey through the book pages and forests of the brothers’ fairytales.

Originally published in Bauwelt 39.2015, pp. 24-29, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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