Le Nouvel Unterlinden Bienvenue À C O L M a R
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NEW ID , detail, 1512–1516, technique mixte (tempera et huile) sur panneaux de tilleul, Musée Unterlinden, Colmar Musée Unterlinden, de tilleul, sur panneaux huile) et (tempera mixte technique 1512–1516, detail, , Retable d’Issenheim, Annonciation d’Issenheim, Retable Grünewald, Grünewald, Le nouvel Unterlinden Bienvenue à C o l m a r musee-unterlinden.com Crédit Mutuel Centre Est Europe, Timken Foundation, M. Thomas Dietschweiler, M. et Mme William et Judith Scheide Presst ki 2016 The Museum Expansion The Musée Unterlinden’s new dimension at Its walls display artworks in greater the heart of the Rhine region and its numbers than ever before. In front of these architecture, with the juxtaposition of the works, visitors are educated, amazed, cloister inviting contemplation and helical intrigued, delighted; they exchange staircases symbolising movement, should opinions… in short, they come alive. not eclipse the definition of a museum. Map of the Musée Unterlinden 1. Entrance, Exit 5. Gallery 2. Cloister 6. Ackerhof 3. Chapel 7. Piscine 4. House 8. Cour ________________________________________________________________________ 2 Urbanism, architecture and museography Museum expansion in Colmar Competition 2009, project 2009-2012, realization 2012- 2015 The project for the extension of the Unterlinden Moved to the centre of the Unterlinden square, Museum in Colmar encompasses three facing the canal, the entrance to the expanded dimensions: urban development, architecture Museum leads to the convent, whose facade and museography. It centers on the issues of was delicately renovated. The renovation works reconstruction, simulation and integration. were carried out in close collaboration with the architects of the French national heritage. Urban development Museological components from the recent past After the extension, two building complexes were removed and the spaces restored to a face each other across the Unterlinden square, former state. We revealed original wood whilst they are physically connected by an ceilings and reopened formerly blocked underground gallery. The medieval convent windows looking out on the cloister and the city. consisting of a church, a cloister, a fountain and The church’s roof was renovated and a new a garden stand to one side. On the other side of wood floor was installed in the nave. Visitors the square, the new museum building mirrors walk down a new, cast spiral staircase leading the church’s volume and, together with the to the underground gallery that connects the former municipal baths constitutes a second, convent with the new building. enclosed court. Inside, we decided to design the underground Between the two museum complexes, the gallery and the new exhibition building (now Unterlinden Square has recovered its historical called “Ackerhof”), which present the 19th- and significance, recalling the times when stables 20th- century collections, along contemporary, and farm buildings formed across from the abstract lines. The space on the second floor of convent, an ensemble called “Ackerhof”. What the Ackerhof is dedicated to temporary was before the museum’s renovation a bus stop exhibitions: its gabled roof and exceptional and a parking lot, has become a new public and height (11.5 meters) reflect the urban space. The Sinn canal, which flows under proportions/volumes of the Dominican church Colmar's old town, is reopened and becomes standing opposite. The central space of the the central element of this new public space. former municipal baths, the swimming pool ("La Close to the water, a small house marks the Piscine”), is connected to the new exhibition museum's presence on the square: its spaces. It serves as a venue for concerts, positioning, volume and shape are those of the conferences, celebrations and contemporary art mill that once stood there. Two windows allow installations. The other spaces of the former passers-by to look downwards at the baths house the administration of the museum, underground gallery connecting the two a library, a café facing the new courtyard and ensembles of buildings. the Colmar Tourist Office facing Unterlinden Square. Architecture We were looking for an urban configuration and The Ackerhof and the small house have architectural language that would fit into the old facades made of irregular, hand-broken bricks, town and yet, upon closer inspection, appear entering into dialogue with the convent facades contemporary. in quarry stone and plaster that were redone ________________________________________________________________________ 3 many times over the centuries. A few lancet The underground gallery consists of a windows are cut into these brick walls; the roof succession of three very different exhibition gables are in copper. The new courtyard is spaces. Beginning the circuit, we have the paved in sandstone, as is the Unterlinden history of the Unterlinden Museum, covering a Square, while the enclosing walls are made of section of 19th-century and early 20th-century the same brick as the new buildings. At the works. The second gallery displays three of the heart of the courtyard, an orchard, the Museum's most important pieces: located under “Pomarium” is growing on a platform made of the little house, this room represents the core of stone and brick. the expanded Unterlinden Museum, uniting the project's three dimensions: urban development, Collection and Museography architecture and museography. In close collaboration with Jean-François Chevrier and Élia Pijollet, as well as with the On the first and second floors, the new building museum’s curators, the museography and the represents a loose chronological sequence of architecture go hand in hand. The collections the 20th-century collection. Interconnected comprise works of worldwide renown from the spatial units organize and structure the floor's Middle Ages and the Renaissance—most overall volume, rather than subdividing it: here notably, the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias works or groups of works are exhibited in Grünewald and Nicolas von Hagenau (1505- relation to one another. 1516, but also designs, prints and patterns for the production of textiles, photographs, Together with the museography for the paintings, sculptures, faience pieces and collection of 20th-century art, the inaugural ethnographic objects from the 19th and early exhibition (from January to June 2016), curated 20th centuries, with a focus on local art and art by Jean-François Chevrier, will serve as an history. From the 1960s onwards, a modern art outstanding example of the uses to which the collection was built up. As to the Isenheim newly acquired spaces can be put, while Altarpiece, it remains in its original if more light- presenting an exemplary reading of specific filled and less cluttered convent church location, pieces from the collection. although its presentation frame has been replaced by a sober steel structure. This makes Herzog & de Meuron, December 2015 the painted wood panels look more like artworks. Eleventh- to sixteenth-century paintings, sculptures, small altars and artifacts are on display on the neighboring ground floor and in the cloister. The downstairs floor presents the archaeological collections. ________________________________________________________________________ 4 Presentation The Musée Unterlinden (1853 – 2015) Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the Musée closed and the city council allocated the Unterlinden’s new extension aims to perfectly building to the museum. integrate its contemporary architecture into the Built opposite the museum in 1906, during the centuriesold history of the building and its period of annexation, the baths were part of collections. It is the result of a thorough going, Germany’s public hygiene programme, which ambitious plan for the future role of the museum also saw the construction of municipal baths in and its position in the Rhine Valley, at the Strasbourg in 1908 and Mulhouse three years centre of a network of leading cultural later. In Colmar, the architect Ulysse Bertsch institutions. designed a neobaroque façade and created As at the creation of the museum in 1853, the highly refined interiors. With offices and early 2000s witnessed the convergence of reception spaces housed in the main structure, several decisive factors. The museum’s his building was conceived to house two pools, different strata had lost their original coherence only one of which was completed. Hence its L- over the years, while the contrast with new shaped structure. recently created cultural structures highlighted The allocation of the baths allowed the museum the obsolescence of the infrastructure. to plan a much more ambitious extension and At the same time, moreover, the collections of to completely redeploy the collections. modern art were significantly enriched as the An international architecture competition was result of the effective acquisitions policy organised in 2009, and the project was conducted by the curators with the support of awarded to the Basel-based firm Herzog & de the Société Schongauer, combined with a Meuron. number of important donations. In 2008 the This involved much more than the simple Parisian collector Jean-Paul Person addition of a new wing. bequeathed nearly a hundred and fifty works, Founded in 1978, the architectural practice of a number of them illustrating the French art Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron has scene in the mid-twentieth century, with artists become internationally renowned for its public like Victor Brauner, Germaine Richier,