Dessau wants to build a new museum for the Bauhaus by 2019 – to mark the centenary of its founding. The competition has already been decided: there are two first prizes that could not be more different.
Bauhaus museums are booming. The current competition to expand the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin will be decided in October. Construction of the New Bauhaus Museum in Weimar is due to begin this year. All that remains is Dessau itself, which is also to get a Bauhaus Museum. The target date is 2019, when the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus will be celebrated. This may raise the question of whether the general public will tire of the subject due to the celebrations and three new museums.
In any case, the architectural competition has now been completed in Dessau, and the worldwide participation in it illustrates the international appeal that the Bauhaus myth still has. 831 entries were received, 502 of which came from abroad. There was no clear winner. The jury, chaired by Wolfgang Lorch, awarded two first prizes to Gonzalez Hinz Zabala from Barcelona and Young & Ayata from New York. The third prize went to Berrel Berrel Kreutler AG from Zurich and the fourth to Ja Architecture Studio in Toronto. Raummanufaktur from Darmstadt, STEIN Weißenberger from Berlin and Nussmüller Architekten ZT from Graz were awarded prizes. An internationally renowned star architect is therefore not among the prize winners, nor even among the 30 teams that made it to the second round.
It is noticeable that the designs submitted do not represent the diversity of ideas expected in such cases. Only a few round shapes were on offer, hardly any deconstructivist splinter work à la Libeskind, instead a lot of cubic, supposedly Bauhaus-compliant designs.
Barcelona versus New York
Nevertheless, the decision was a real surprise, as the jury awarded two first prizes that could not have been more different. The Catalans designed a 100-metre long Miesian-style block with a transparent façade. A black box with the freely curatable exhibition spaces floats above the permeable first floor as a house within a house. Perhaps the building will gain in stature through dedicated, delicate detailing. At this stage, it doesn’t exactly look entrancing.
The Americans are different. All kinds of metaphors came to the jury’s mind during the meeting. There was talk of upside-down flower vases or Smurfs. One could also think of a collection of 36 thermos flasks or a conference of pointed caps. Whatever the case, it is a unique piece of “signature architecture” that would create a certain Bilbao effect.
The assembled vessels are to be clad in glass mosaic, in shades of red and gray on the outside, in shimmering colorfulness in the inner courtyards. They will be raised from mushroom-shaped pedestals so that the public space from the street to the park runs beneath them – certainly an asset for the city.
Next steps
The exhibition spaces are as different as the external form. Here the neutral white cube from Barcelona, there the pre-shaped, often round rooms with their own character from New York, which will not make it easy for the curators. The jury was enthusiastic about the very different approaches and recommended further discussion and mutual consideration of the two concepts – probably very curious to see what will come of it.
The ball is now in the court of the Bauhaus Foundation and its director Claudia Perren. She is to enter into negotiations with both teams of architects. It will have to be clarified whether and how the two designs can be reconciled with the curatorial and museum educational ideas and, above all, how the budget of 25 million euros can be managed. The latter will pose problems for the New York design in particular, which experts estimate to be double that amount. Assuming that the negotiations with both are successful, the foundation will have to make a fundamental decision: stodgy understatement or fun harlequinade. It is difficult to associate either with the Bauhaus.
You can find out more in Baumeister 10/2015
