Like a Piece from a Missoni Collection – The new Home of the Brandhorst Collection by Eva Herrmann | 15.04.2011

So different and yet so attracting the exterior present itself with a shell consisting of 36,000 ceramic rods, forming always new color groups in 24 different shades.
The road was a rather bumpy one after all. In multiple seemingly endless decision periods two concepts turned out to challenge one another, concepts that could not have been any more different from each other: the plain, contained building by Sauerbruch Hutton against an expressive space battle below a closed shell by Zaha Hadid. Finally, the decision was made in favor of the modesty of the architects from Berlin. Something that was and still is a well thought out decision in an era of the not-always-applicable Bilbao effect.

Even before construction began people passing by wondered how a museum building was supposed to be erected here, upon the little remaining premises at the corner Türken / Theresienstraße, right next to the Pinakothek der Moderne. Integrating itself into the heterogenous area of the museum quarter, yet at the same time being a signal of its own. Collection founder Udo Brandhorst wanted a modest museum only serving art. And that’s exactly what he got.

Now voices might be heard that the façade untypical for a museum would hardly be able to keep what it promises in terms of a matching innovative interior. Correct. Architecture has accepted too much of a subordinate role here in favor of the art it houses. But that a fruitful coexistence is possible is something other buildings have already demonstrated. However, the functional structure of suitable rooms for the pieces of the collection, which means large formats, graphics and media art, is well made. A lot of work has gone into lighting and the museum’s technology. That way the architects managed to get a lot of natural lighting into the building, through a clever arrangement of rooms above and below ground level and through re-directing the light coming in from above. And instead of energy devouring air conditioning systems required for preserving art, floors and walls are tempered through component activation – not air. This is what the energy balance benefits from, not to mention the room air.

And the one who still has his problems with the colorful façade and the unusual material, which is uncommon for Munich, known to not really fancy experiments, will be surprised when queuing up at the ice cream parlor opposite from the museum: All color shades can be found again in the adjacent streets. On the façade, the color of the entrance door, here a sign, there a canvas blind. It would be to simplified giving reasons for the façade’s material by mentioning visual desires only. Apart from today’s compulsory heat insulation there are folded and perforated metal panels behind the ceramic rods, blocking the noise from the busy street. At least now things have been put straight again. 

Further projects from Munich…