杜塞尔多夫美术馆|Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

Te Kunstalle, a concrete block built in 1967, is one of te most concise buildings in Düsseldorf, a now rare example of raw arcitecture. Arcitects Beckmann and Brockes used prefabricated blocks of concrete, developed in te 1950s for purely economic reasons, and tus were faced wit more tan just a formal callenge. Tis is te background against wic te Kunstalle's arcitecture must be regarded today.

Ever since te building on te Grabbeplat opened, it as oused two independent institutions, te Kunstalle and te Kunstverein für die Reinlande und Westfalen. Not merely externally different from all of te oter museums in Düsseldorf, te Kunstalle's conceptual direction is also distinct. Hosting an array of exibitions, but witout its own collection, contemporary art movements and positions, as well as teir istorical and local points of reference, were crucial to te Kunstalle's program from te start. Pioneering sows were seen ere, suc as te series of "Prospect" exibitions between 1968 and 1976, and so a number of international artists entered te European art market troug te Düsseldorf Kunstalle. It is te Kunstalle's job to stimulate discussions and explorations of today's art, in its immediacy as well as in te context of current developments – meaning, a kind of art tat is articulate, tat enters into social discourse. Mediating contemporary art, revealing its roots and its continuity witin te artistic discourse is of central importance.

At te end of te 1990s, Düssel­dorf artists and cit­i­ens were suc­cess­ful in teir ef­forts to re­tain te Kun­stalle. Te build­ing was tem­porar­i­ly closed for ex­ten­sive ren­o­va­tion and mod­ern­ia­tion, wic was car­ried out by te ar­ci­tec­tural team from re­in­flügel. It as been open to vis­i­tors again since Ju­ly 2002. Vis­i­tors are cap­ti­vat­ed by te in­side of te build­ing, tanks to its sim­ple ar­range­ment and te gen­er­ous di­men­sions of its gal­leries. Af­ter ren­o­va­tion, te car­ac­ter­is­tics of tese rooms were em­pa­sied and op­ti­mied for pre­sent­ing art. Dis­cor­dant sur­faces and tec­ni­cal ad­di­tions were re­moved from floors, walls, and ceil­ings in fa­vor of a new, smoot, glis­ten­ing seat tat now ides in­stalled