Vitra Design Museum
(5 votes, average: 4.80 out of 5)
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Location:
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Charles-Eames-Str. 1
Weil am Rhein
D-79576
Germany
coordinates:
47.6017036 7.6187181
Building names(s): Vitra Design Museum
Architect/Designer:
Frank Gehry
architect website:
Other Information:
Completion date: 1989
Function:
Guided Architecture Tours: daily at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.Museum website: www.design-museum.de
Hours:
Monday – Sunday: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Wednesday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m
Closed: December 24 – 25, December 31, January 1
The cafè has the same opening hours as the museum.
Admission:
Museum EUR 8,00
Guided architectural tour: EUR 9,50 (Duration: 2 hours)
Combination ticket (museum + guided architectural tour); EUR 13,50
getting there:
Public transportation (ÖPNV): From Basel (Claraplatz or Badischer Bahnhof) take bus number 55 until the bus stop Vitra. From the train station in Weil am Rhein it is about a 15-minute walk to the museum.
By car: The Vitra Design Museum can be reached from Freiburg (north) or Basel (south) via the Autobahn A5 (exit Weil am Rhein), from France/St. Louis take the boarder crossing Palmrain. From Lörrach/Riehen turn west at the marked junction “Weil am Rhein” just north of the Fondation Beyeler. A big car park free of charge exists.
Last modified: 9 June, 2009 | Suggested By LT
(5 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Frank O. Gehry, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Nicholas Grimshaw and Alvaro Siza who have all realised significant designs here at the invitation of company head Rolf Fehlbaum. It is primarily because of the unique density and quality of the buildings assembled here in such a compact space. No wonder, then, that the company grounds have emerged as a Mecca for architecture lovers from all over the world in the past one and a half decades. To accommodate the extensive public interest in the buildings on the Vitra site, the Vitra Design Museum offers regular guided architectural tours in numerous languages.
The starting point for the tour is Gehry’s sculptural-expressionistic museum building, completed in 1989 – the first of the California architect’s buildings to be realised in Europe. The Conference Pavilion by Japan’s Tadao Ando was also a European premiere. The introverted structure is visually impressive with its formal restraint and reduction to a few materials. Along with the museum and Conference Pavilion, the Fire Station by London-based Zaha Hadid is one of the highlights of the tour. Long an icon of deconstructivist architecture, this was the first work ever to be realised by the master architect who is today entrusted with prestigious major commissions throughout the world.
A provisional capstone in the architectural development of the grounds was set by the Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza with the puristic seeming brick-clad Production Hall he connected to the neighbouring hall with a bridge-like roof construction. In past years, the architecture park in Weil has been enriched with two treasures from the history of building: a dome-shaped tent construction from the American architectural visionary Buckminster Fuller and a small knock-down petrol station by the French constructeur Jean Prouvé, which are likewise covered in the architectural tour.