Axel Schultes - Kunstmuseum Bonn

Axel Schultes was born in Dresden but has spent most of his life in Berlin where he studied architecture in the 1960s. He has completed over 100 projects and to date has built half a dozen buildings in Germany. The most important competition that he has recently won is for the Spreebogen, an area in former East Berlin where the German government will have its new seat. This accomplishment has placed Schultes in the limelight of the architectural world and has given a new perspective to his work. Schultes's architectural philosophy has been influenced by the ancient structures of Egypt and Turkey as well as by Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and Louis Khan. Khan, perhaps more than the others, has played a major role in Schultes's concept of space. In fact, he learned from Khan "how to make space out of mass". Khan's maxim that "to design space is to design light", meaning daylight, has become Schultes's credo. Furthermore, the "silence of walls" is seen as the beginning of all art. This text analyzes Schultes's Kunstmuseum (Art Museum) in Bonn which was completed in 1992.
This work is the clearest manifestation of Schultes's architectural concepts: Severe geometrical forms, circles, segments, a staircase evoking ancient amphitheatres and finally a transparent shed roof through which daylight streams in. The result is a bright, living, consistent daylight which gives life to the museum rooms. Therefore, the interrelationship between space, light and silence allows the calm perception of paintings and the play of objects in the light.