Typology museum Location Glauburg Construction Volume GFA 2.190 m² GV 9.500 m³ Client federal state of Hessen represented by HMWK Realisation 2008–2011 Competition 1st prize – 2006 Awards Auszeichnung vorbildlicher Bauten in Hessen 2011, best architects 13 – award, Deutscher Stahlbaupreis 2012
#A museum for Celtic art, in direct proximity to a historic burial mound
Similar to an excavated archaeological find, the metal body of the museum juts out from the landscape and forms a counterpart to the burial mound. More of a mysterious object itself rather than architecture, the museum should be stumbled upon by its visitors as a marker of landscape discovery.
The Celtic Museum is a clearly contoured and distinct volume, blending in with the surrounding landscape. Partly inserted into the slope, it projects itself towards the burial mound. Its vital function as an element of the landscape, the museum building amplifies the burial mound’s leading role. Underneath the main volume, one finds the foyer and the café and adjoining rooms as well. Here begins and ends the exploration of the museum’s archaeological trail. A staircase-ramp guides the visitor into the exhibition.
A panoramic window, offers an impressive view of the burial mound, incorporating it into the exhibition itself.
The roof acts also as an observation deck onto the scenic landscape and the skies above – so that the surroundings can be “discovered”.
What the archaeologists discovered from the geomagnetic aerial photos and brought to light between 1994 and 2000 was beyond their wildest dreams. The sensational discovery of the Celtic princely tombs with substantial, fully preserved burial objects, the cult area and its settlement makes it one of the most important Celtic archaeological and research sites in Europe today.
The architecture of the exhibition is based on the superordinate principle of layering, inspired by the procedures of an archaeological excavation. The history and culture of the Celts is exposed in individual layers and models different zones and transitions in a neutral space. Differently shaped horizontal, vertically layered bands, projecting and receding, form changeable exhibits.
