Sprengel Museum (competition)

Status: 2009 (3rd prize)
Location: Hannover, Germany

Client: City of Hannover
Value: Confidential

 

Stanton Williams’ proposal for the Sprengel Museum seeks to reengage the museum with the urban ground and scenery. Internally it establishes a round-trip in conjunction with the existing galleries, offering an enclosed open space with public functions like a cafe, placement rooms and education spaces, at the museum’s heart. Here the idea of the ‘Museumsstreet’, which plays the key role in the existing building, finds its urban completion.

The floating roof creates space for seven new exhibition spaces and also hovers protectively over the public space.

Underneath the roof structure, which creates pleasantly lit internal and external spaces, generously glazed facades connect visitor flows with the flaneurs’ routes. The seven highly flexible galleries are evenly lit by GRG diffusers, which are plugged into the ever-present blades of the roof.

The extension masters the challenge of maintaining the scale and spirit of the existing building and solving its shortcomings. It transforms the Sprengel Museum into a modern building that takes responsibility for the public space around it.