Küppersmühle Museum, Grothe Collection
Duisburg, Germany · 1999
Photo · Photo © Margherita Spiluttini
An interior precedent demonstrating how a sculptural, pigmented concrete spiral staircase can serve as a monumental focal point within an adaptive reuse museum project.
- What we like about this project
- The underside of the stair features highly visible, curved board-marked timber formwork textures.
Materials
- pigmented-concrete
- textured-plaster
- steel
Visual identifiers
- spiral-staircase
- pigmented-concrete
- board-marked-concrete
- monolithic-circulation
- earth-tones
Style tags
- sculptural
- minimalist
- brutalist
- monolithic
Visual tags
- sculptural-stair
- adaptive-reuse
- museum-interior
- brutalist-influence
- monolithic
- Geometry
- A dramatic, sculptural spiral staircase with a board-marked concrete underside twists through a double-height volume bounded by planar, earth-toned walls.
- Structural guess
- Self-supporting cast-in-place concrete spiral shell
- Spatial scale
- Double-height monumental stair hall scaled for public museum circulation.
- Lighting
- Warm, indirect daylight washes down from above, with a sharp vertical slit of light casting a bright accent on the plaster wall.
- Atmosphere
- Warm, cavernous, and quiet, defined by the heavy texture of earth-toned concrete.
- Environmental context
- An internal circulation core within a converted industrial museum structure.
- Spatial experience
- The space feels subterranean and monolithic, where the heavy, twisting mass of the concrete stair compresses the lower level before opening up to a light-washed upper landing.
- Composition rhythm
- The sweeping curve of the stair underside contrasts with the rigid verticality of the surrounding walls and light slits.
- Style reading
- Sculptural minimalism with material brutalism
- Program
- Museum circulation hall
- Perspective
- Interior Spatial
- Discipline
- architecture
- Materials
- pigmented-concrete, textured-plaster, steel
- Visual identifiers
- spiral-staircase, pigmented-concrete, board-marked-concrete, monolithic-circulation, earth-tones
- Style tags
- sculptural, minimalist, brutalist, monolithic
- Visual tags
- sculptural-stair, adaptive-reuse, museum-interior, brutalist-influence, monolithic
- Geometry
- A dramatic, sculptural spiral staircase with a board-marked concrete underside twists through a double-height volume bounded by planar, earth-toned walls.
- Structural guess
- Self-supporting cast-in-place concrete spiral shell
- Spatial scale
- Double-height monumental stair hall scaled for public museum circulation.
- Lighting
- Warm, indirect daylight washes down from above, with a sharp vertical slit of light casting a bright accent on the plaster wall.
- Atmosphere
- Warm, cavernous, and quiet, defined by the heavy texture of earth-toned concrete.
- Environmental context
- An internal circulation core within a converted industrial museum structure.
- Spatial experience
- The space feels subterranean and monolithic, where the heavy, twisting mass of the concrete stair compresses the lower level before opening up to a light-washed upper landing.
- Composition rhythm
- The sweeping curve of the stair underside contrasts with the rigid verticality of the surrounding walls and light slits.
- Style reading
- Sculptural minimalism with material brutalism
- Program
- Museum circulation hall
- Perspective
- Interior Spatial
- Discipline
- architecture