Arp Museum Remagen Rolandseck Germany

Arp Museum Remagen-Rolandseck, Germany - Richard Meier & Partners
Designed to accommodate a unique collection of work by Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, this museum enjoys dramatic views over the Rhine Valley. The Arp Museum consists of a main building plus a gallery for special exhibitions. The main building of the museum is situated high above the River Rhein and next to the former Rolandseck rail road station, The structure’s entry sequence does not begin in the museum proper, but rather at the base of the bank-side mountain, in the old village railway station, now used as an exhibition space. The lowest level of the station functions as the main entrance to the new museum building, which is reached only gradually by a series of carefully modulated tunnels and shafts that burrow into and up through the mountain to the new building. The first of these subterranean sequences begins from this lobby, which leads to a 40 meter long tunnel, illuminated by two continuous bands of light, which extends below ground under the railway tracks to an exhibition pavilion that stands independent of the main museum building.
The modest pavilion features polished concrete floors and a discreet slotted skylight. Aside from providing ancillary temporary exhibition space, the pavilion also establishes a sense of expectation and uncertainty that is further reinforced by the next sequence, which materializes as another subterranean tunnel, this time 35 meters long and terminating at the bottom of a dramatic 40-meter-high shaft with access to two glass-enclosed elevators. These elevators ascend through the shaft to a conical tower structure above grade. Here the translucent tower walls illuminate the shaft and elevators, with added illumination and hints of views provided by transparent glass slots in the tower walls. At the tower’s apex the elevators open onto a 16-meter-long, glass-enclosed bridge which represents the final stage of the sequential promenade into the museum.
Total area: 3,400 square meters. Completed: 2007. Client: Ministery of Finance, Rheinland Pfalz, Arp Museum, Bahnhof Rolandseck. Architects: Richard Meier & Partners Architects LLP