The Museum Folkwang by David Chipperfield

The extension of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield opened in 2010, after two years of works, on the space previously occupied by the north wing of the museum. The new design retains its autonomy and offers a variety of exhibition spaces with natural light, a library and reading room, a multipurpose room for conferences and events, storage spaces and restoration workshops.

Exterior view of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Christian Richters.

The Museum Folkwang, founded in Hagen by Karl Ernst Osthaus in 1902, was the first museum of contemporary art in Europe. After Osthaus' death, in 1922 part of the collection was transferred from Hagen to Essen, and although they didn't have enough space for all the art pieces, no plans to build a new museum were made until 1925, year in which Edmund Körner designed the union of two villas belonging to the city and located in the current plot of the museum. After the National Socialist period in which it suffered the plundering of more than 1400 works and its buildings were bombed, the new building, now listed, designed by Kreutzberger, Hösterey and Loy, opened in 1960.

David Chipperfield was selected by competition in 2007 to design the museum extension which was inaugurated in 2010, when the Ruhr region was declared European Capital of Culture. The project complements the original building, connecting it to the new structure of six volumes and four courtyards with two glass passages. A generous staircase leads from Bismarckstraße into the new foyer, which has a small restaurant and a bookstore, protected from the street by a glass facade.

The design gave special importance to the quality of natural light in the exhibition rooms, inside the building you can see the light changes throughout the day. The contours of the elements of light direction and the creation of light on the exhibition halls are visible and allow the visitor to know where the light comes from. The permanent and temporary exhibitions are mainly illuminated by natural light and showrooms for the German Poster Museum, the Photographic Collection and the Collection of Graphic Arts by artificial light.

Description of the project by David Chipperfield Architects.

The new museum extension by David Chipperfield Architects complements the original listed building, preserving its integrity while perpetuating the architectural principle with an ensemble of six volumes and four inner courtyards, gardens and covered walkways. The publicly accessible areas connect seamlessly with the existing exhibition areas. A generous open stairway leads from Bismarckstraße into the new foyer, which takes the form of an open interior courtyard with a restaurant and a bookstore, and is protected from the street by a glass façade.

Visitors are welcomed into a succession of differing rooms – exhibition areas with ceiling heights of up to six metres, a library and reading room, a multifunctional room, an events space, storage and restoration workshops. The extension, which is oriented towards Essen’s city centre, provides a new urban focus together with the neighbouring Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities. The translucent, alabaster-like façade consists of large rectangular recycled glass slabs. The colour of the façade shifts with the changing natural light and the integrated window openings sit flush with the façade. Polished screed was used for the floors, which is similar in colour and texture to the concrete elements used for the plinth.

CREDITS. DATA SHEET.-

Dates of completion.- March 2007 - October 2009.
Gross floor area.- 24,800 m².
Architect.- David Chipperfield Architects, Berlin.
Partners.- Alexander Schwarz - Design director; Harald Müller - Managing director.
Project architects.- Ulrike Eberhardt, Eberhard Veit - Planning; Peter von Matuschka - Competition.
Project team.- Markus Bauer, Florian Dierschedl, Annette Flohrschütz, Gesche Gerber, Christian Helfrich, Barbara Koller, Nicolas Kulemeyer, Dalia Liksaite, Marcus Mathias, Sebastian von Oppen, Ilona Priwitzer, Mariska Rohde, Franziska Rusch, Antonia Schlegel, Marika Schmidt, Thomas Schöpf, Gunda Schulz, Manuel Seebass, Robert Westphal.
Landscape architect.- Planungsbüro Meinholf Hasse, Mühlheim a.d. Ruhr.
Structural engineer.- Ingenieurberatung Pühl and Becker VBI, Essen; Seroneit and Schneider GmbH, Essen.
Services engineer.- Giesen-Gillhoff-Loomans GbR, Krefeld; BBT Engineers, Düsseldorf.
Building physics.- ISRW, Dr. Ing. Klapdor GmbH, Düsseldorf.
Façade consultant.- KonTec Fassadenberatung, Dormagen; Pazdera AG, Coburg.
Lighting consultant.- Arup, London, Berlin.
Acoustic consultant.- ISRW, Dr. Ing. Klapdor GmbH, Düsseldorf.
Fire protection consultant.- Dipl. Ing. Bernhard Spitthöver GmbH, Essen.

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Entrance view of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph courtesy Creative Commons by Rufus46.

Courtyard view of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph courtesy Creative Commons by Rufus46.

Imagen del vestíbulo del Museo Folkwang diseñado por David Chipperfield Architects. Fotografía © Ute Zscharnt para David Chipperfield Architects.

Exhibition room of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Christian Richters.

Exhibition room of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Ute Zscharnt for David Chipperfield Architects.

Exhibition room of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph courtesy Creative Commons by Rainer Halama.

Inside view of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph courtesy Creative Commons by Julius1990.

Courtyard from the inside of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Ute Zscharnt for David Chipperfield Architects.

Exterior view of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph © Ute Zscharnt for David Chipperfield Architects.

Sketch of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Image © David Chipperfield.

Site plan of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Image © David Chipperfield.

Basement floor of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects.

Ground floor of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects.

First floor of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects.

Longitudinal section, AA', of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects.

Longitudinal section, BB', of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects.

Section of the two connection passages between old and new of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects.

Elevations of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects.

Exterior view of the Museum Folkwang designed by David Chipperfield Architects. Photograph courtesy Creative Commons by DerHexer.

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David Chipperfield

Sir David Alan Chipperfield was born in London, England, on 18 December 1953 and grew up on a farm in Devon, southwest England. He studied architecture at Kingston School of Art, graduating in 1976, and at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, where he completed his studies in 1980. After working with Douglas Stephen, Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, he established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985.

His early commissions included the interior design of a shop for Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake in London, which led to further work in Japan. His first major building in the United Kingdom was the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, completed in 1997. As his international activity expanded, the firm opened offices in Berlin (1998), Shanghai (2005), Milan (2006) and Santiago de Compostela (2022), in addition to its London headquarters.

Over the following decades, Chipperfield completed more than one hundred commissions across Asia, Europe and North America, encompassing civic, cultural, educational and residential buildings, urban interventions and the restoration of historic architecture. In Berlin, he directed the restoration and reconstruction of the Neues Museum (1993–2009), followed by the construction of the James-Simon-Galerie (1999–2018) on Museum Island.

His other works include the Veles e Vents building in Valencia (2006), Turner Contemporary in Margate (2011), The Hepworth Wakefield (2011), the extension of the Saint Louis Art Museum (2013), Museo Jumex in Mexico City (2013), the Amorepacific headquarters in Seoul (2017), the extension of the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2018), the West Bund Museum in Shanghai (2019) and the extension of Kunsthaus Zürich (2021). His interventions in existing buildings also include the restoration of Mies van der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (2021) and the refurbishment of the Procuratie Vecchie in Venice (2022). More recent works include Casa RIA in Santiago de Compostela (2024), Arena Milano (2026) and the transformation of the former Bank of Spain building in Santander into Faro Santander (2026).

Alongside his architectural career, Chipperfield has taught at institutions in Europe and the United States, including the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and Yale University. In 2012, he was curator of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, entitled Common Ground, and between 2016 and 2017 he participated as an architecture mentor in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. His publications include On Planning – A Thought Experiment (2018), and in 2020 he served as guest editor of the Italian magazine Domus.

In 2017, he established Fundación RIA, an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to research and sustainable territorial development in Galicia, Spain. The foundation works on territorial planning, environmental issues, local economies and cultural heritage in collaboration with public administrations, institutions and local communities. In 2024, it inaugurated Casa RIA in Santiago de Compostela, a historic building refurbished by David Chipperfield Architects that also houses the firm's Galician office and accommodates a public programme of lectures, exhibitions and other activities.

Beyond architecture, he has developed furniture and product designs in collaboration with international manufacturers through David Chipperfield Design. In 2026, Casa RIA presented Design for Living, an exhibition bringing together more than fifty objects, prototypes and drawings produced over a period of thirty-five years.

Chipperfield is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA). He received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009 and was knighted for his services to architecture in 2010. His professional distinctions include the RIBA Royal Gold Medal (2011), the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association (2013) and the Pritzker Architecture Prize (2023). In 2021, he was appointed to the Order of the Companions of Honour in the United Kingdom, followed in 2022 by his appointment as Commander of the Order of Isabella the Catholic in Spain and his admission to the German order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts.

Published on: November 11, 2015

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metalocus, ANDREA PORTILLO

"The Museum Folkwang by David Chipperfield" METALOCUS. Accessed

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