Frankfurt, Germany
The organization of this building arises from a need to preserve as many of the existing trees as possible while respecting the scale and the height of the adjacent villas. Conceived as a kind of “conservatory-museum”, this latest addition to the Museumsüfer, a line of museums along the river Main, is organized around a long, glazed ramp hall that opens onto the existing park and provides views of the Schaumainkai and Meier’s Museum for Decorative Arts.
In contrast to the standard, encyclopedic presentation typical of nineteenth-century collections, this museum exhibits its holdings as a series of set pieces housed in a sequence of top-lit and side-lit galleries. Extra care was taken to screen out direct sunlight by shielded monitors for the inward-oriented, top-lit upper galleries, while, in contrast, the lower floors open out for indirect light and lateral views over the court. The museum’s curatorial policy is to represent ethnology as a “unified diversity”, first through a series of independent, but linked, top-lit cubic forms, and then through alternative itineraries afforded by the plan. In this respect, the formal strategies adopted for the Museum of Decorative Arts and this museum are complementary in that the first consists of prismatic masses fed by an inner cruciform circulation system, while the second consists of the ramp-hall backed up by cubic pavilions along the Metzlerstraße.
To attract the casual visitor as well as to gratify the habitual museumgoer, large, dramatic exhibits, such as boats and a ceremonial house, surround the entrance hall. The ramp and a double-story bridge directs the visitor into the main galleries of the towers, housing the Indonesian, African, American, and Oceanic collections from the lower to upper levels, respectively. The sequence extends on the piano nobile, across Metzlerstraße, through a floating bridge/gallery connecting a second major ceremonial house exhibit. Open-air courts and the park proper are juxtaposed with interior spaces to create a constant dichotomy of inside/outside and to allow an integration of nature, art, artifact, and its means of display.
建筑师理查德·迈耶采用了玻璃幕墙和顶光设计，创造了一个明亮通透的环境，同时也考虑到了周围环境的保护。展览方面，该博物馆采用了一种非传统的展示方式，将各种文化艺术品以不同的主题进行分组，从而让游客更好地理解不同文化之间的联系。博物馆还特别注重展览的视觉效果，通过大型的展品和精致的陈列，吸引了众多游客的关注。总的来说，这是一个值得一看的博物馆，不仅让游客了解到世界各地的文化，也有机会欣赏到精美的艺术品和建筑设计。
