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| Plans >> | History of Construction | ||||
| In August 1993 the district administration office Bregenz issued the building permit for the construction of a new art museum. The plans and negotiations had already begun in 1989. The design of Swiss architect Peter Zumthor of Haldenstein near Chur had been awarded first prize in the architectural competition. Work on the new building began in 1994; the roofing ceremony was celebrated in November 1996. By the end of June 1997, the administration building was completed, in July the museum building followed. The Kunsthaus was opened on July 25, 1997. | |||||
| "The art museum stands in the light of Lake Constance. It is made of glass and steel and a cast concrete stone mass which endows the interior of the building with texture and spatial composition. From the outside, the building looks like a lamp. It absorbs the changing light of the sky, the haze of the lake, it reflects light and colour and gives an intimation of its inner life according to the angle of vision, the daylight and the weather." Peter Zumthor, Architect |
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| Location and Position | |||||
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Within the Urban Context The Kunsthaus Bregenz was built as a solitary
construction in a prominent location not far from the lakefront.
It fills the space on "Seestraße" between the Theater
for Vorarlberg and the main post office that had been empty for
many years. The entrance lies on the eastern side of the building
facing the town. The administration building, situated in front
of the museum towards the city centre, acts as a transitional structure
to the smaller and low buildings of the old part of the town. All
functional facilities of the Kunsthaus other than those directly
associated with the presentation of art are housed separately in
this smaller building, which accommodates a library, the museum
shop and a café besides the administrative offices. |
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| Facade | |||||
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The facade consists of etched glass shingles with several functions:
they lend the building's main body lightness with their transparency,
insulate against cold and heat and form an essential part of the
lighting arrangement for the building. The incoming light is refracted
for the first time on the facade before entering the interior. |
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| Ground Floor | |||||
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Beyond the entrance, we find a multifunctional room that is used
as a foyer, a wardrobe, for the cashier's desk and for various events.
The outer walls on the ground floor and on the first subterranean
level are made of etched glass from floor to ceiling. |
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| Subterranean Level | |||||
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Due to the above-mentioned daylight conditions, the first subterranean level can accommodate rooms accessible to the public, such as a lecture room and the museum educational centre, besides stock and maintenance rooms as well as sanitary facilities. The second subterranean level, which is not accessible to the public, accommodates the originals archive, the workshops, a cleaning room as well as electrical, heating and climate controls. All the piping for the electrical, heating and climate-control systems were laid in concrete during construction. | ||||
| Upper Floors | |||||
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The three exhibition floors differ only in respect to ceiling height. The third floor - the floor with the best daylight conditions - measures 4.70 metres, the first and second floor 4.20 metres. The walls are made of exposed concrete that was shuttered with unstructured, completely even panels and, after stripping the framework, were cleaned only with soft soap, but not polished. The floor is made of terrazzo (polished cast concrete), which was dyed dark grey on the first subterranean level and ground floor, while the staircase and the exhibition floors are light grey. The workmanship of the Terrazzo is remarkable for such a large surface area, as expansion joints were not required. This was made possible by inserting ventilation slits on the outer walls to absorb the tension in the floor. |
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| Lighting | The Kunsthaus Bregenz
was conceived as a daylight museum. The facade made of glass shingles
serves as a skin to diffuse daylight which first passes through rows
of windows and then through the light ceilings in the halls. Although
the light has been refracted three times (glass facade, insulating
glasswork, illuminated ceilings), it illuminates the halls differently
depending on the time of day or year. In this way, a natural lighting
atmosphere is created although the building has no visible windows.
Over the hanging light ceiling, specially developed pendulum lamps,
controlled by an exterior light sensor on the Kunsthaus roof, have
been installed that complement the daylight. Every lamp can be controlled
separately or as a group and can be infinitely dimmed (light management
system Luxmate professional). The pendulum lamps hang in pairs at a 90° angle to one another and are equipped with 58 Watt fluorescent lamps and diffusion attachments. |
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| Technology |
The climate control system of the building can neither be seen
nor heard because it has been consequently designed as a structural
cooling or heating unit. Altogether 28 kilometres of piping filled
with circulating water have been installed in the ceilings and walls.
This created an active coupling of the room climate to the building's
substance. In addition, the Kunsthaus is bound to the surrounding
land: the temperature of the ground-water functions as a coolant
in summer, while in winter the water is heated by gas. Plastic pipes
within the slotted wall construction with a depth of 27 metres transport
water to the piping network in the ceilings and walls. This allows
the Kunsthaus to do without conventional air-conditioning units
under normal operating conditions. Climbing temperatures in the
hot summer months can be kept in check by additionally cooling with
incoming air. The costs of construction for this newly developed
climate control concept lie 50% below the costs of conventional
air-conditioning. Even the consumption of energy during current
operation can be kept low in this way. The costs of operation have
been prognosticated at one-fifth of the costs for a comparable cubature. |
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| Data and Facts at a Glance |
Costs: 285 million Austrian Schilling / 41 million DM,
of which 220 million Austrian Schilling / 31,5 million DM are construction
costs |
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