photo Städel Museum

Frankfurt | the Städel museum new underground extension

In 2015 the Städel will celebrate its 200th anniversary; the museum is indeed the oldest in Germany, founded in 1815 by Johann Friedrich Städel, a wealthy banker from Frankfurt.

Over time the museum, housed in an imposing renaissance-revival building designed by Oskar Sommer, has seen several extensions, but the latest has had a substantial impact on the institution image and has soon become its new emblem.

top: photo Städel Museum; bottom: photo Norbert Miguletz

The Städel addition has been completed in 2012 on a project by Frankfurter architects Schneider+Schumacher, who prevailed on a “parterre de rois” including some of the most renowned international design offices.

The project, along with a general rearrangement and renovation of the existing spaces, envisaged the realization of a 4,151 square meters expansion for displaying the 20th century art collection of the museum.

The new wing has been completely built underground, replacing the old garden with a new gently domed and grass-covered plane resembling a drape; located beneath it, the exhibition spaces are generously lit through a sequence of round skylights, carefully “dabbing” the surface.

top: Photo: Norbert Miguletz, © Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main

bottom: In the Städel Garden IV – The Encryption Garden, © Alan B. Brock-Richmond und Bernhard Schreiner

What is remarkable is how an apparently simple design could be able to produce so interesting spaces both outside and inside the building: the curved roof is accessible and invite the visitors, kids especially, to run, walk and wander up and down this unconventional grassy hill, while the underlying galleries are airy and full of natural light.

top: photo Marc Jacquemin; bottom: photo Norbert Miguletz

A grid of thin concrete columns, enclosed within the partition walls and thus virtually invisible, support the ceiling slab. Because built largely underground, the new wing also provides optimal climatic conditions for the exhibited artworks with a reduced energy consumption.

top: photo Städel Museum; middle and bottom: photo Norbert Miguletz

As stated earlier, the new spaces are dedicated to modern and contemporary art collection of the Städel, which includes masterpieces by Much, Picasso, Matisse, Otto Dix, Max Ernst, Yves Klein, Fontana, Klee, Baselitz, Giacometti, Richter, Francis Bacon and Jeff Wall, just to name a few.

The Städel museum has indeed one of the most ample collections of figurative arts in Germany, with paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs, covering seven centuries from early 14th century to present day.

top and middle: photos Norbert Miguletz; bottom: photo Städel Museum