Licht Kunst Licht AG
Museums & Exhibitions / Daylight

Emil Schumacher Museum

Hagen, Germany
Architects
Lindemann Architekten, Mannheim
Client
City of Hagen
Occupant
Regional Association Ruhr
Project size
7,700 sqm
Photos
Lukas Roth
Completion
2009
Overall building budget
25 million euros
Lighting budget
0.7 million euros
Awards
1

Between Representation and Abstraction – The Emil Schumacher Museum in Hagen

Hagen has dedicated a museum to its honorary citizen Emil Schumacher. In an area of 1,100 square meters the museum exhibits Schumacher’s works in the context of parallel international art developments and the environment of his time.

Licht Kunst Licht AG
Licht Kunst Licht AG
Licht Kunst Licht AG
Licht Kunst Licht AG
Licht Kunst Licht AG
Licht Kunst Licht AG
Licht Kunst Licht AG
Licht Kunst Licht AG
Licht Kunst Licht AG

The new three-storey construction for the Emil Schumacher Museum is realized as an exposed concrete volume within a glass cube; the concrete cuboid being connected to the Osthaus Museum by means of a joint foyer. Through its glass sheath the building establishes a lively interaction with its environment. During the day the mirror images of the neighboring buildings are reflected in the glass facades, while at night the building glows with light from within. For this purpose, the concrete surfaces behind the curtain wall are evenly illuminated. The facade radiates the color that Emil Schumacher treasured particularly: blue.

The central design intention for the illumination of the Emil Schumacher Museum and the extension of the Karl-Ernst-Osthaus Museum was to create a connecting lighting element for the museum-used rooms.

On the top floor a skylight spans the entire space. Square frames fitted with a tension-mounted, diffusing membrane have been suspended below the ceiling with minimal joints between them.

Located between the membrane surface and the glass ceiling are luminaires which are controlled in accordance with incident daylight levels. At night, they alone provide the interior illumination. For structural and climatic reasons there is a safety-glass roof above the glass ceiling. Installed on it is a sun-tracking lamella system, which blocks out direct sunlight and thereby prevents the rooms from overheating and protects the artworks against harmful radiation.
The wall-flanking track and projector system can be individually and optimally tailored to the different exhibitions by means of large and small spotlights with varying photometric properties.

This efficient and flexible, yet formally extremely reduced, lighting solution creates exhibition spaces evocative of white cubes – a perfect setting for the expressive chromaticity and materiality of many of Emil Schumacher’s works. The diffuse light from the luminous ceilings creates a shadow-free lighting ambience within the room. In combination with the directional light from projectors, optimum visual conditions are provided for the paintings, gouaches, graphics, ceramics and paintings on porcelain and slate, which constitute the precious collection of the Emil Schumacher Museum.