Art district Hagen

Emil Schumacher and Osthaus Museum seen from Hochstraße

Facade of the Emil Schumacher Museum at night

Entrance to the museum square

The Hagen Art Quarter is a museum quarter opened in Hagen in 2009 . At the same time it acts as an inner-city architectural concept and as a prologue for the European Capital of Culture 2010 .

location

The museum quarter includes the expanded Osthaus Museum Hagen in the historic Folkwang Villa and the newly built Emil Schumacher Museum made of concrete with a glass shell. Both museums are connected by a transparent foyer. In the basement of the Osthaus Museum is the "Young Museum", which was newly founded in 2009 and is used for museum education and events. The ensemble is complemented by the new building on the east side for administration and lecture rooms, archive, cultural office and restoration as well as the conversion of the “old district court” for museum purposes. The space on Hochstrasse that was created by the architectural redesign was named Museum Square at the beginning of 2009 .

competition

In December 1999, the inner-city building concept around the already existing, but under renovation, Karl-Ernst-Osthaus-Museum (KEOM) and the planned Emil Schumacher Museum as well as the design of the area close to the city center (today Museum Square) were announced as a competition across Europe Prize money totaled over 160,000 German marks . Of the more than three hundred submitted designs, twenty-two made it to the final round. The Mannheim planning association Lindemann and Lindner won first prize with their design of clearly legible, cubic structures for the new building, the low, connecting foyer and the flanking extensions. The existing structure of the “Old Local Court” and the extension of the Osthaus Museum from 1972 to 1974 were integrated. The planned buildings and the closure of the block edges created a central square. The jury praised the glass facades on the new building with a lighting concept and visible internal staircase, the design of the foyer as a joint between the new and old building, the refurbishment of the inner city area for pedestrians and the use of outdoor events with the praise of an “appropriate balance between the independent design qualities of the new building and consideration on the existing building fabric ” .

construction

Foyer between the museums

The new Emil Schumacher Museum was originally supposed to open on August 29, 2002, on the artist's 90th birthday. Emil Schumacher died in 1999, however. In June 2005, the mayor of Hagen, Peter Demnitz, and the artist's son and heir, Dr. Ulrich Schumacher signed a contract to build the museum and to transfer the artist's works to a foundation, which paved the way for funding from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The foundation stone for the new building was laid in August 2006. Diederichs Projektmanagement from Berlin was engaged as project manager. As a cost-reducing measure, the company reduced the underground car park to one storey, as otherwise the groundwater would have had to be tampered with.

In April 2006 the KEOM was closed for the renovations. The renovations and extensions made it possible to gain 380 m² of exhibition space and modernize the service facilities. The extension, which was built in the 1980s, was renovated and the color of the original conception was adapted. With the reopening, the museum will only be called "Osthaus Museum" for short.

The construction costs for the entire complex amounted to around 25 million euros. Of this, around 13 million euros went to the new building, 6.6 million to the renovation of the Osthaus Museum, 1.5 million to the square, the paths and outdoor facilities. They were funded by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (approx. 13 million euros), the city of Hagen (approx. 6.3 million), the Regional Association Westphalia-Lippe, the Regional Association Ruhr and the Emil Schumacher Foundation (approx. 4 million euros) .) and sponsors funded.

The opening of the Museum Quarter was celebrated on August 29, 2009 as part of a two-day culture and museum festival in the presence of the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers and the President of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert .

Ruhr.2010 - European Capital of Culture

The opening of a new museum district in the previous year of the Capital of Culture year is seen as an important precursor. The Kunstquartier is one of the nine panoramas in the projects of RUHR.2010 . In 2010 and in the context of the Capital of Culture year, the Kunstquartier will organize special exhibitions and events. There are plans to present Turkish painting and sculpture from 1950 to the present day and contemporary works from Istanbul from the “Huma Kabakçı” collection of the Turkish art collector Nahit Kabakçı in the Osthaus Museum. Istanbul is also a cultural capital in 2010.

literature

Dieter Nellen, Tayfun Belgin, Alexander Klar (eds.): Kunstquartier Hagen with Osthaus Museum and Emil Schumacher Museum . Klartext, Essen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89861-839-7 (three-volume opening catalog in a slipcase: history, architecture, profile).