The design of
the Arp Museum represents the seamless
integration of the building’s spectacular site with the museum’s mission to showcase
the work of the Dadaist master Hans Arp and his circle. One of the unique features
of the region in which the museum is located is the series of medieval castles
that line a 35-mile stretch of the river Rhine.
The Arp Museum, sited on a wooded escarpment
overlooking the Rhine, is intended to respond
to and echo the forms of these captivating relics.
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, used since
the 1960s 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—that 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.
The entry to the museum’s ground floor is
flanked to the right by a freestanding staircase leading to the lower and upper
levels and to the left by a void overlooking the lower-level lobby. In addition
to the lobby, which offers visitors an opportunity for rest and repose, the
lower level features a classroom, administrative offices, service facilities,
and access for shipping and receiving art. In fact, the oversized service elevator,
designed to facilitate the movement of art, also functions as the visitors’
elevator and provides a galvanizing core around which the gallery spaces on the
ground and upper floors are organized. More specifically, at the ground level
these spaces include two large galleries with access to two terraces, as well
as a smaller enclosed gallery. The spaces on the upper floor are distributed in
the same manner as on the ground floor; however, rather than opening onto
terraces, the two large galleries on the upper floor occupy a seemingly free-floating
platform supported by columns so that they overlook the ground floor galleries
at the east and west edges. The two main upper-level galleries are illuminated
from above by a ceiling composed almost entirely of glazing, with a series of
2-foot-wide adjustable aluminum louvers providing complete daylight or daylight
modulated with artificial light. A similar, though immobile, louver system
occupies the double-height glazed facade facing the Rhine,
opening the museum to breathtaking views of the surrounding valley.
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