stAIRWAYs – An air bridge to the Abteiberg Museum in Mönchengladbach

© Päivi Kataikko

The second scale of the university competition in 2006 and 2007 tackled the spatial connection of the Abteiberg Museum created by Hans Hollein to Mönchengladbach’s city centre. It also looks at the quality of the surrounding public spaces. The museum entrance with its bridge over the Abteistraße was originally designed as a direct connection to the pedestrian zone (Hindenbergstraße); this concept was, however, not realized. As a result the museum’s main entrance is quite concealed and as a result is rarely used by the visitors. The architecture students Moritz Gerigk, Thomas Herbert and Jens Paprotta from Bochum University of Applied Sciences (under the supervision of Prof. Andreas Fritzen) proposed to create the previously planned connection in a new and spectacular way. They proposed a temporary stairs-bridge-construction over the roofs of two blocks of houses. With this design they were able to win the student competition. In September and October 2007, shortly before the reopening of the renovated museum building, stAIRWAYs was realized for the period of three weeks. The temporary air bridge not only created a completely new city space but also offered the possibility to the Mönchengladbach citizens to admire a new and previously unknown perspective of their city.

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