Kunstmuseum Stuttgart

The Kunstmuseum in Stuttgart occupies the explosive site in the centre of Stuttgart known as the 'Kleiner Schloßplatz' since the 1960s. This square opposite the Neues Schloß became synonymous with post-war planning errors. Transport planners had cut it to bits with their underground tubes before it was covered over with fashionable structures in the style of their time. The irreconcilable arguments alone that subsequently flared up about the future of the Kleiner Schloßplatz made it the most important location for the Stuttgart architecture debate in recent decades. Over thirty years passed, and several competitions were needed – in the course of which an absurd Postmodern and then a technocratic proposal triumphed –, before a convincing solution was found by the architects Rainer Hascher and Sebastian Jehle, who work in Berlin but come from Stuttgart. They had already created a stir with a project for EXPO 2000 in Hanover, in which a large 'office landscape ' was not just euphemistically promoted as such, but – protected by a monumental glass wave – was actually realized as a roofed park. The prize-winning design for the Kleiner Schloßplatz, of which all that can be seen from the outside is a glass cube making an impact over a distance and defining the urban situation, solved the enormous space problem of an art collection including 15000 works, the most outstanding of which are by Otto Dix, Willi Baumeister, K. R. H. Sonderborg and Dieter Roth by placing most of the galleries in a disused tunnel from the old road system. This gave the building the generous amount of space that contemporary art demands from a museum. In contrast, the austere simplicity of the cube is pure Swabian understatement. But the cube’s top floor, which is open to the public, offers some of the finest views in the city centre. Svenja Bockhop, who studied architecture after training as a photographer, works for Hascher Jehle Architektur. Roland Halbe has been an architecture photographer in Stuttgart for almost 20 years. His work extends far beyond Germany; Halbe has photographed almost all Spain’s important new buildings. The architect and architecture historian Kaye Geipel, the author of numerous pub-lications in magazines and books, is chiefly concerned with the structural change in modern architecture since the mid 20th century; he has worked as editor for Bauwelt since 1995.