West German Art Museums of the 1950–1980s in the Context of Cultural Politics and Architectural Discussion

Alexander Lemeshinski

This project addresses the phenomenon of museum building in West Germany in the second half of the twentieth century. By examining the country’s diverse and multifaceted museum culture from architectural, political, and sociological perspectives, the project shows how the architectural scene and the matrix of socio-political forces influenced the West German museum landscape. The research mobilizes a wide range of periodical publications, statistical databases, and archival materials. Chronologically, museum buildings are assigned to one of two main periods, each defined by political agenda, museological trends, and architectural discourse. Spanning the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, the first period is characterized by the use of ‘critical’ reconstruction for war-damaged museum structures of the past and the construction of new museum buildings. The case of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (Hans Döllgast, 1952–1957) shows how damaged or ruined buildings were transformed into new museum spaces by combining old architecture with new quasi-modernist elements. The buildings of the Walraff-Richartz Museum in Cologne (Rudolf Schwarz, 1953–1957) and the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg (1959–1964) also occupy a special place in the development of museums. These two objects illustrate how postwar modernism was applied to museum construction and the role museum buildings played in the heated discussion about the development of postwar architecture in Germany. The second period, covering the 1970s and 1980s, not only signaled the arrival of the language of postmodernism on the architectural scene but also bore witness to  the museological turn of that period. Aiming to get rid of the ‘threshold fear’ (Schwellenangst) and coupled with the idea of transforming the museum from a ‘temple of the muses’ (Musentempel) to a ‘place of learning’ (Lernort), this break with older traditions mobilized the new trends in postmodernist architecture for museum construction. It gave rise to museum buildings such as the Neue Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart (James Stirling, 1979–1984) and the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (Hans Hollein, 1987–1991). The analysis of West German architectural journals makes it possible to trace the foreign influence on the architectural language of West German museums. The insight into the museological narratives of the period under study reveals how museum curators and directors played a role in defining the architectural language of museum buildings. The overall analysis of numerous museum objects revealed the trends and patterns of their development, also in the context of the transnational scene of museology and architectural polemics of the second half of the twentieth century. The project contributes to a broader knowledge of West German architecture by revealing lesser-known structures and reconstructing the debates that revolved around them.