Curatorial Design for Museums and Sacred Spaces

Wilfried Kuehn

Principal, Kuehn Malvezzi Architects

In the design of a museum and sacred space, architectural theory, practice, and critique come together. Like the ritually charged sacred spaces, exhibition architecture is a display, extending the tasks of picture frames and pedestals into space and turning simple walls into complex exhibit contexts. Kuehn Malvezzi has designed and realized a series of museums and sacred spaces that address the relationship between exhibit and display, and between ritual and architecture. We have found the term Curatorial Design for this: in the examination of curatorial issues, architectural design is redefined.

Public spaces, museums and exhibitions are the main focus of their work as architects, designers and curators. They realized the architectural design for Documenta 11, the Rieckhallen extension of the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart – Berlin, as well as the Julia Stoschek Collection in Dusseldorf. The firm has designed the reorganization of a number of contemporary and historical art collections, attending to sensitive preservation issues for listed buildings, such as the Museum Belvedere in Vienna, the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, the Museum Berggruen and the Museum of Applied Arts in Berlin, as well as the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick.

HAMBURGER BAHNHOF – NATIONALGALERIE DER GEGENWART, BERLIN, BRIDGE TO THE RIECKHALLEN EXTENSION © Ulrich Schwarz

HOUSE OF ONE, BERLIN, PLATEAU VIEW © Kuehn Malvezzi, Visualization Davide Abbonacci

INSECTARIUM MONTREAL, EAST FACADE WITH POLLINATOR GARDEN © James Brittain