New Bauhaus Museum: Master Plan
The new Bauhaus Museum overcomes the one-sided historisation of Weimar
Guided by the intent to maintain the unique cultural context inherited by Weimar and to plan its continuation into the future, the German Federal Parliament and the State Parliament of the Free State of Thuringia have approved a special programme with which the Klassik Stiftung Weimar will be able to realise investments totalling 90 m € between 2008 and 2017. The federal budget attached specific purposes to this programme. 20 m € will be required to correctly restore and refurbish the city palace in Weimar as a historical monument, including initial furnishings. 25 m € are budgeted for the restoration of printed and handwritten works, the replacement of the losses of library stock due to the fire, the basic refurbishing of the Goethe- and Schiller-Archive, and the construction of a new Bauhaus Museum. The Thuringian parliament has planned the appropriate funds for the coming fiscal years. The various projects of this special programme were presented by the Stiftung in its Master Plan under the title »Cosmos Weimar«, which was approved by the council of the Klassik Stiftung on 8 July 2008.
Weimar is a historical place that visitors can discover on their own within the city palace. The fruits of »Cosmos Weimar« can only be reaped by those who are able to link history to the present. This is the primary task of the new Bauhaus Museum within the landscape of the Weimar museums.
Weimar possesses a unique, though non-comprehensive collection on the history before, during and after the Bauhaus, which was founded here in 1919. Only second to the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, it is the most important collection worldwide in terms of size and quality. The basis is comprised of some 150 workshop creations that Walter Gropius left behind in Weimar in 1925. They are supplemented by important work groups of individual masters – above all Lyonel Feininger – and students – i. e. Peter Keler, Karl Peter Röhl, Andor Weininger and Walter Determann. In addition, there are important holdings at the Bauhaus University Weimar (Modernist Archive) and in the Thuringian Hauptstaatsarchiv (Main State Archive). This collection is the core of the museum presentation. A second emphasis of the Bauhaus Museum is dedicated to the Bauhaus idea within the history of functional design, which originated in the classical period. Finally, the third emphasis of decisive importance is the area of temporary exhibitions. This is the only way to connect the rich museum landscape in Weimar to great international exhibition projects and to the developments of contemporary art.
A new Bauhaus Museum in Weimar is not only a challenge as a museum, but also a project with which we can give Weimar a new cultural direction.
Especially in regard to recent history, it is of great importance that the Bauhaus Museum is not understood as an investment task to be carried exclusively by the state and federal governments. Moreover, this task, which conceptually lies in the hands of the Klassik Stiftung as the builder and owner of the museum, must become a project that greatly contributes to the urban identity of Weimar. As a community and a body of citizens, the city of Weimar must cooperate in the fulfilment of this task in a recognizable way. Only if the city adopts the Bauhaus Museum as its own issue will it be possible to reverse the one-sided historisation of Weimar and foster the continuation of cultural innovation so typical of the Cosmos Weimar into the 21st century.
More information (in German) and the Master Plan »Cosmos Weimar« at the Website of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar