Kunstmuseum Stuttgart - Stuttgart, Germany - Art Museums on Waymarking.com

The museum has built on its existing structures to combine old and new approaches, and its exhibitions now address current, international issues, focusing on four main themes: the ornament (in Adolf Hölzel's work, for example), politics and social critique (Otto Dix), subversion and irony (particularly in the work of Dieter Roth) and the often blurred line between "free" and "applied" art (e.g Adolf Hölzel, Ida Kerkovius, Oskar Schlemmer and Willi Baumeister).

Scarcely any other architectural project in Stuttgart sparked as much debate as the new building for the Kunstmuseum, partly because of its prominent location at the heart of the city. In March 2002 construction began on the site of the problematic traffic interchange built during the post-war era on Kleiner Schlossplatz. The city's art collection was finally given the home it deserves. It had taken two decades, three competitions and one city planning survey before the construction of the museum on Königstrasse finally got the go-ahead. The design of Berlin architects Hascher + Jehle was selected from a number of proposals submitted in an international contest in 1999. The Stuttgart-born pair wanted to create a "tranquil, elegant structure that is clearly a product of our times". Hascher and Jehle's final design was a distinctive yet unobtrusive architectural gem which blends in well with Stuttgart's overall inner-city architecture. The square-cut glass shell, which is visible from afar, envelops a stone panelled cube, which houses about a fifth of the exhibition space. By far the largest part of the 5000 m² exhibition space is actually located below Kleiner Schlossplatz. While parts of the museum's own collection are permanently displayed on the two basement levels, the cube is mainly used for special exhibitions.

In 1924 Count Silvio della Valle di Casanova laid the foundation for the Stuttgart art collection, donating his private collection of Swabian impressionist paintings. The collection went on display in May 1925 in Villa Berg, originally constructed for the crown prince of Württemberg. In 1943 the building was unfortunately destroyed in air raids and many works of arts were lost.

It was not until 1961 that the Gallery of the City of Stuttgart found a new exhibition site in Theodor Fischer's reconstructed art building on Schlossplatz. Eugen Keuerleber, who had been curator of the municipal art collection since 1945, was appointed gallery director. He envisaged the institution - in contrast to the internationally oriented Staatsgalerie - as a museum of 19th and 20th century art from Baden-Württemberg. Keuerleber decided to concentrate on four main areas: Swabian impressionists, Adolf Hölzel and his entourage, Otto Dix, and the region's contemporary art. The world's greatest array of Dix's works remains the nucleus of the municipal art collection.

Plans to give the gallery and its growing inventory a new building of its own go back as far as the late 1970s. In 1986 Johann-Karl Schmidt was appointed director. He brought with him a new, superregional outlook. He concentrated on collecting and exhibiting contemporary artists with a connection to South West Germany by virtue of origin or place of work, particularly those of international standing such as Joseph Kosuth, Dieter Krieg, Wolfgang Laib, Markus Lüpertz, Dieter Roth and K. R. H. Sonderborg. Prominent art collections were added as permanent donations. Rudolf and Bertha Frank contributed in 1992, the Konrad Knöpfel-Stiftung Fritz Winter in 1994 and Etta and Otto Stangl in 2001. In 1998 the Willi Baumeister Archives, the Stuttgart-based estate of Willi Baumeister, was promised to the new museum upon completion. The last major acquisition, under the curatorship of current director Marion Ackermann, was the Teufel collection with works of Concrete Art.

Name: Kunstmuseum Stuttgart Location: Kleiner Schlossplatz 1, 70173 Stuttgart Phone Number: +49 (0) 711 - 216 21 88 Web Site: [Web Link] Agency/Ownership: Public Hours of operation: Tues - Sun, 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Wed + Fri, 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. Mon closed Holiday opening hours: Good Friday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day: closed. On all other holidays the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. This also applies to Easter Monday, Whit Monday, and in 2006 to the May Bank Holiday Admission Fee: €5.00 Gift Shop: yes Cafe/Restaurant: yes

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