New Bauhaus Museum - Honorable Mention by MenoMenoPiu Architects

In our last post, we published the awarded entries of the international competition for the New Bauhaus Museum in Weimar, Germany. One of the three Honorable Mentions was the entry by Rome/Paris-based MenoMenoPiu Architects. The design team included Alessandro Balducci, Gilberto Bonelli, Mario Emanuele Salini, and Rocco Valantines.

From the Jury Report:

"The transparency makes the continuity between inside and outside, the outside comes inside and vice-versa. An eclectic conquest of the space makes the building not a barrier but a dynamic urban link, crossed by a linear flexible path across Bauhaus history. The idea of creating a new unity by the marriage of many arts and movements".

Project Description from the Architects:

"I'm interested in the idea of overlapping images over several layers of transparent surfaces" - Moholy-Nagy's "Light Space Modulator"

The building is conceived as an open square at the crossing point of the three main city forces, old and new city and the park, a flexible "object" that allows different  activities inside and around it.

A covered square as a multifunctional space that may or may not  interact with the upper exhibition floor, depending on opening hours, a multitask space opened to the city in a natural relation with the park.

The "clever cover", as a key element designed to be flexible to accommodate contemporary technologies to full filled the future needs of the building. The game of light and shadows made by the pattern of the cover evokes the drawings of Josef Albers.

50% of the roof (1250m²) are covered with photovoltaic panels which provide up to 250kw/day, satisfying the 60% of the museum energy consumption.

Sliding shaders manage the seasonal solar interior contributions, satisfying programmatic needs of the different boxes .

The system "box in the box", in synergy with the technological roof , guarantees the best climatic control through the different seasons.

Project Credits:

Design Team: MenoMenoPiu Architects (Alessandro Balducci-Gilberto Bonelli-Mario Emanuele Salini-Rocco Valantines)
Collaborators: Francois Zab-Marco Lavit Nicora-Marco Conti Sikic-David Yahn-Drahi-Luca Stortoni
Landscape: Bassinet Turquin Paysage
Engineering: Marc Hammon- Giulia Fatarella

Find more plans and diagrams in the image gallery below.