DAS KLEINE GROSZ MUSEUM
Heidemarie Tauber
Year: 2009
Location: Berlin
Architect: Juerg Judin (Standardtyp der Shell AG von 1956)
INTUITION
ABSORBING ATMOSPHERES
Calming down
I like it immediately. A warm and winking gesture of entrance attracts me! The first step in is surprising and ends up in questions.
The second step brings a smile to my face. There’s water and fish! I am curious. Me breathing out, a sigh of relief. I’m pleased. I realize how the noise and smell of the big city has remained outside. I relax instantly. But also I wake up and want to discover everything around me.
Don’t want to go inside
I start by walking along the water. Watching the fish, passing the green vegetation, makes me happy. Places to hide give me a sense of security. Only then do I turn my attention to the building, but it has not that much attraction to me. I feel comfortable here and how fresh is the air, it smells a bit like forest. The only unpleasant thing
are the people who are curiously rummaging around. The place also makes me feel a little trapped for a moment.
Guided
I walk in and felt a little sad losing the calming area; it is more noise here than outside, but also I felt welcomed and greeted by the smell of coffee and people chatting; It seems busy here in the entrance area and I had to watch my steps not to stymie somebody on his way. In this hurry condition, I want to walk right away into another space.
The way to there intuitively leads me to the left into the exhibition room. It doesn’t go straight from the light into the dark, which I like.
Two steps further on, however, I am in the dark after all. It’s OK. It felt to me like another way this place is making me relaxing. This seems to me the most quiet place in this space. The light is like water into the interior. After all the impressions, I can now pause for a moment and focus.
Focus on the points of light in the room, the paintings. That’s what was hidden behind the light blue glass wall! Another surprising feeling of discovery. But I don’t feel so comfortable in the room on the upper floor then, I feel a little lost and abandoned, it is too much area for me.
Exposed
I prefer to go back down to the exit area. But I don’t want to stay there for long. It’s restless here. Even the inside of the cafeteria doesn’t seem to me as cozy as it did from the outside. There is nowhere to retreat to when I tried to find to. Everything is visible here, me and all what I do and how I behave. I don’t want to be so exposed, in spite of the feeling that the nature is nearly beside me at my table. When I step
back outside, I notice that I feel little better again than inside.
INTENTION
UNDERSTANDING ATMOSPHERES
Calming down
It stands small and flickering next to the large adjoining building, but it seems to silently claim its place in the City. The place welcomes the visitor discreetly with hanging brown and green above the clean white wall. Suddenly there is an entrance in the wall. Stepping in, a small elongated pond greets me with patient splashing and a lot of greenery along the wall let me breathing out and calming down. Passing the pond and the little bridge over the water, the traffic noise of the city disappears. A pigeon and a duck are also there. The wall around this place is a little distracting, but it’s needed to keep this place secret. But it hasn’t always been an urban oasis. The wall didn’t
originally exist, the greenery only partially. In 2005, the architect Juerg Judin recognized the potential of this place and built a wall around it. After this first step to create a relaxing environment he worked with nature, trees, grass and reeds, flowing and still water and animals inside the wall.
Exposed
As I get closer to the building, I can see through the big glass wall directly into the rooms of the café space and realize that the garden actually extends into the interior through the glass walls. There is no difference between doors, walls and windows. The small seating area doesn’t have much space and this small almost round room doesn’t allow much choice of movement. Increased by the high wall out of glass and steel, I feel exposed. What is here inside and what the outside is not defined. This was not intended by the architect to make people feel exposed. The use of this space is not actually a café, but
was planned for a petrol station in 1956. For this reason, there is a lot of glass to provide a good overview. At a time when in architecture materials were used, unconventional and unusual shapes and colours reflected modern building. The 1950s were an attempt to break new ground and overcome the design language of the previous decades.
IMAGINATION
COMMUNICATING ATMOSPHERES
Peaceful
Painting style Deconstructivism, Artistic, Nature Park, Green Braun, Blue, Gray, Reeds, Grasses, Bushes, Small trees, Bright, Sun, Friendly, Calm, Relaxing, Free space, Like an island, in the background a lot of city and gray and cars and people far away, And traffic and noise, very deconstructionism.
With these lines, I created an Atmosphere with AI communicating the Atmosphere of Calming Down of the section of Das kleine Großz Museum.
ALTERNATIVE SCENARIOS
Be somewhere else
Come to rest. Concentrate on the place. Leave the burden outside the walls. Here is a protective place. Without traffic, without the city. Relaxation sets in. Inspiration begins to stir. The muse and creative desire come forward. Let your thoughts run wild. The hands too. The feeling can guide you. Distraction here only comes from within. A place that can also offer the function of a protected space. For art and the fun of painting and drawing. The place allows you to immerse yourself. Into painting, feeling, thinking. Appeals to the mind, then also to the soul. A retreat to spend time together in a gentle and quiet atmosphere. The lightness can easily be transferred to the canvas here.
Painting lessons
Come to rest. Breathe out. Silence. Let go. There is even more to it than on the “Museum Island” of the GROZS Museum. Being far outside, perhaps completely without people, without traffic, without the city. A floating pool of peace, surrounded by forest, greenery and animals. Let your mind wonder, be in your feelings. A place that takes the function of the oasis to the extreme. The wall is gone, the vastness
is there. Then also in the mind, then in the soul. A retreat to be alone, but also to spend time together, concentrating on the here and now. The water becomes an element of the wall, only much more open, the negation of the wall.