100 Years of Bauhaus
Design of the Bauhaus Museum Store Weimar

With the new Bauhaus Museum Weimar, a site was created for the 100th anniversary of the historic Bauhaus where questions of design, materiality, and social responsibility are being renegotiated. The origins of the Bauhaus lie in Weimar. The integration of art, craft, architecture, and everyday life developed there continues to shape design discourse to this day.

For the design of the museum store, Felix Schwake was commissioned. His design approach had already been influenced early on by an engagement with European modernism and the ideas of the Bauhaus. The starting point of the project was the question of how a retail space within a museum can function without disturbing the spatial calmness and openness of the architecture.

The design therefore did not understand the store as a decorated retail surface, but as an integral part of the museum space. The aim was to develop an independent spatial identity for the store while preserving the open atmosphere of the museum.

The design follows a reduced architectural order. Mobile shelving and platform systems form a modular spatial grid that can be reconfigured flexibly. All elements were conceived as movable in order to enable different forms of product presentation and to continuously reorganise the space.

The mobile shelving systems fulfil several functions simultaneously. During opening hours, the space remains open and permeable. Transparent glass partitions maintain visual connections and avoid barriers within the museum. After closing time, the elements are repositioned to form a spatial boundary that simultaneously acts as protection and as a shop-window situation.

The design thus emerged directly from functional requirements. This connection of function, construction, and spatial clarity links back to central questions of the historical Bauhaus. Architecture and design are not defined through decorative elements, but through material, use, and spatial order.

Particular importance was also given to the integration of storage areas. As no separate storage rooms were provided within the museum, all storage functions were integrated into sculptural store elements. Every part of the architecture therefore performs multiple functions simultaneously.

The project exemplifies an attitude that understands architecture not as image production, but as responsible shaping of spatial situations. The mobile, monolithic elements create an independent atmosphere within the museum while consciously remaining a background for perception, movement, and use.

The work on the Bauhaus Museum Weimar thus illustrates a continuous engagement with questions that continue to shape architecture today: How is spatial clarity generated? How can function and atmosphere be combined? And how can design have a lasting impact without constantly moving itself into the foreground?