One every side of the building you find a word written on the facade: library. But in four different languages. When you look at the building from the west, it says “Library”, from the north “Bibliothek“. On the wall facing the south you find the word library written in Arabic and from the East in Korean – because the architect of the new city library is South Korean.

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Where the Metropol Cinema is located today used to be the first central train station of Stuttgart. King Wilhelm I wanted the station to be in the center of Stuttgart and so the location close to the New Castle was chosen. When it was opened in 1846 it operated four tracks and you could catch a train to Ludwigsburg and Esslingen from here. However, the station grew too small quickly and all that is left of it today are the pillars and the semicircular arches that marks the entrance to the cinema.

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These buildings date back to the late 19th century and a period called “Gründerzeit”. In these days a law existed that said there must be a 2,9 meter long gap, the “Bauwich”, between houses.  In the event of a fire it should reduce the risk of the fire spreading from one building to the next. Nowadays these gaps are the entrance to the backyard of the Gründerzeit-buildings.

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The Weissenhofmuseum is located in the Weissenhofsiedlung (Weissenhof Estate) in the north of Stuttgart. The estate was planned and constructed as a architectonic exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund (German Association of Craftsmen) in 1927. The exhibition’s goal was to present a prototype of future workers’ housing. Instantly the estate became a manifest of modern architecture. The 21 houses were built in only 21 weeks due to the usage of new materials and the high level of prefabrication. With the construction of the Weissenhofsiedlung begun a new era of architecture. The 17 participating architects, amongst them famous names like Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, turned their backs to rich decorations and other romantic gadgets and embraced simplified facades, practical solutions and open plan interiors.

What makes Weissenhofmuseum in Stuttgart such a special place?

“But what makes this museum so special?” you might ask now. The Weissenhofmuseum is located right in one of the original buildings, planned by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret. It is in fact the only building that is open to the public, the others got either destroyed during World War II or are private property. One part of the house hosts the actual museum. Here you can get information about the 1927 exhibition and the history of the estate. The other part of the house got restorated and is now an accessible exhibit. The rooms are in the exact state as they were in 1927. Visiting this part of the museum feels like stepping back in time. In Le Corbusier’s “transformable flat” everything had to be functional and practical, like in a train cabin. Some of the walls can be moved and – like in a sleeper cabin – the bed disappears in a wardrobe during the day. Thus, the numbers of living- and bedrooms were flexible.

This sort of interior design and architecture might seem quite normal for us today but in the late 20s it was a huge revolution. That’s why Le Corbusier didn’t only have fans in those days. Some complained about the lack of cozyness, others couldn’t imagine living in the constricted rooms. During the Third Reich, the regime even planned to break down the settlement as it didn’t fit in their old-fashioned, traditional idea of architecture. Luckily, that never happened.

And here’s a little extra on top of all this information. Make sure you put the Weissenhofmuseum in Stuttgart on top of your bucket list because you surely don’t want to miss a UNESCO World Heritage Site, do you? Yep, it’s true, the two Le Corbusier houses got listed by UNESCO in July 2016. And if all this didn’t convince you, you might still like this place because you’ve got an amazing view over Stuttgart from the roof terrace! 🙂

More information about:

Weissenhofmuseum

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Where the entrance to the exhibition used to be, a green park and modern, white houses awaits you. Walking on the footpath feels like walking in a maze because the green area is a meter higher than the foot path.

Most of the buildings at Think K will house luxurious flats soon. At the moment, there is still a lot of construction work going on.

Some of the shops around the main square are open already, and so is a little Café. And that’s where we spent our lunch break.

The atmosphere is very cosy and I liked the mix of visitors: Rich looking ladies who might have visited their new flat in one of the buildings next to construction workers who spent their break there, too.

They offer a selection of breakfast specials, sandwiches and sweets. I went for a Croissant, filled with homemade strawberry jam. Yummy! 🙂

I am curious what this new quarter will look like in a few months, when all the construction work is finished.

More information about:

Think K (only in German)

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