Liebieghaus

Frankfurt, Germany

Photo © Ulrich Schwarz

Museums + Galleries

Architects: KUEHN MALVEZZI

Location: Frankfurt, Germany
Year: 2008
Client: Staedelsches Kunstinstitut

The 19th-century villa and its later gallery extensions can now be experienced as a place of collection and research. The former upper-floor rooms of the villa, with their partially built-in furnishings, have been reclaimed as studioli. In this way the rooms themselves, together with the exhibits, also exhibit collection and research in the 19th century. The exhibition route is de-musealised into the structure of the private house through its spatial reduction. In doing so, the coloured design of the walls accomplishes a rhythm that makes the passage through the exhibits structured and memorable. Compared to the former exhibition, the exhibits now appear much brighter, though the light intensity remains unchanged: the previously white background has been replaced by walls whose colouring varies from warm grey to, in parts, intensively luminescent tones.