Bauhaus Museum in Dessau

Commendation at the Annual "Domes International Review of Architecture Awards" / February 2016

The Bauhaus Museum is an "open square", an unfolding that gathers movements of major axes of the city and the park, like a crucible, through an ascending route in the open atrium-the heart of the Museum -, and from there, gradually higher, to the Collection Presentation (permanent exhibitions).

The Museum is composed of basic structural components such as pillars and slabs (line and plane) that are articulated through contrasting synthetic dipoles such as mobile-stable, indoor space-outdoor space, light-shadow, gravity-hovering etc. Synthetic dipoles that constitute the basic field of Bauhaus teaching and research.

It also introduces a dense network of references, about the construction morality of Bauhaus, and the spirit of its teaching, demonstrating its special meaning, not as an obsolete venture, but as a perpetual starting point of modern everyday life, art and culture.

The unfolding of the ground creates a network of various small open spaces for outdoor service of the cafeteria, open air exhibitions and enables activities of the Event Area and the Museum Education to spread to the outdoors. In this way the museum integrates with the city and its urban life as an organic member. The entrance in the atrium is marked by the floating roof and its dynamic sharp ending leaning towards the sky. The roof and the ascending entrance route act as a funnel towards the interior. The water line aligned on the side of the entrance ramp, prepares the visitor to a gradual entering.