The Bauhaus Museum Dessau will open its doors on September 8, 2019. The world’s second largest collection of items devoted to the Bauhaus, only a limited number of its 49,000 items could be shown until now in the Bauhaus Building. With an exhibition space of 2100 square meters, the new museum will provide a far-reaching display of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation’s collection.
The basis of this collection was 148 works by members of the Bauhaus sold to the city of Dessau by the Galerie am Sachsenplatz in Leipzig for 145,000 deutsche marks in 1976. In December 1976, the objects, ranging from ceramics to furniture, were put on display in the Bauhaus Building, reopened on the fiftieth anniversary of the Bauhaus in Dessau as the Scientific-Cultural Center of the German Democratic Republic. This acquisition will receive particular attention in the new museum as the foundation of the present day collection.
The new building, located on the edge of Dessau’s City Park, was planned by the Barcelona architectural firm of addenda architects led by González Hinz Zabala. The commission to build the museum with its house-in-a-house concept – featuring a suspended steel transom in a glass mantle – was awarded to the firm following an open international competition in 2015, in which 831 firms submitted designs. The collection will be presented in a self-contained “black box” on the upper floor. The museum’s foyer, which can also be used for temporary exhibits and events, is incorporated into the transparent ground floor.
The groundbreaking ceremony took place on December 4, 2016 during the festivities marking the ninetieth anniversary of the Bauhaus building. The structure and façade was completed two years later.
The permanent exhibition in the Bauhaus Museum Dessau will tell the story of the renowned Dessau school, shedding light on its history based on original furnishings, lamps, textiles and artworks. The Bauhaus will be represented as a lively laboratory that still shapes our everyday lives today, a site of teaching and learning where artistic experiments were carried out and industrial prototypes were created.
