Moving Forward

The nine designs that were awarded prizes and special mentions in the competition for the renovation of the Bauhaus-Archiv/Museum für Gestaltung are on view on the future site.

“Moving Forward” focuses on the design by Staab Architekten, Berlin, which the competition jury unanimously awarded the first prize at the end of October 2015 and recommended that it should be implemented. A total of 41 international architecture offices submitted contributions to the closed competition held by Berlin’s Senate Administration for Urban Development and the Environment.

Against the background of visitor numbers that have been constantly increasing for many years, the approaching centenary of the Bauhaus in 2019 provided a suitable occasion for extending the museum. The Bauhaus-Archiv building, designed by Walter Gropius, will in the process be renovated in accordance with historic monument requirements and the existing services will be distributed across two buildings: the archive and library will be located in the existing building, while exhibition and event areas will be housed in the extension. Completion of the building project is planned for 2021.

**Top**: PPAG architects ztgmbh, Special Mention. **Above**: Staab Architects, First Prize

The jury for the architecture competition, chaired by architect Hilde Léon, explained the decision in favour of Staab Architekten by stating that the design, ‘with its clear and well thought-out intervention succeeds… in enhancing the existing building while at the same time creating a striking symbolic entrance to the lowered exhibition areas’. A glass tower some 20 metres high is to become an iconic eye-catcher in the urban space and will also serve as the entrance to the museum below it.

The flexibly usable exhibition spaces, with an area of 2,300 square metres, are linked to each other and accessible from a gallery running underneath the existing building’s access ramp. The gallery offers a view of the inner courtyard, which will be the central location in the overall architectural ensemble. At the side of the tower, in which rooms for museum educational services and a digital information area will be housed, there will an elongated block along Von-der-Heydt-Strasse housing the cafe and Bauhaus shop.