Breaking away from conventional ideas and old living environments, a new interpretation in art, architecture and design: These attributes are still associated with probably the most significant and influential school for design to this day.
Walter Gropius founded the State Bauhaus in 1919 and brought art and handicraft together under one roof for the very first time – a revolutionary step in that era. To mark the 100th anniversary, a new museum was created at the historical site of the Bauhaus in Dessau. Its opening is one of the highlights of the anniversary year and also means that there is finally enough space for an extensive presentation of the second largest Bauhaus collection in the world. To ensure that this valuable exhibition is optimally protected, the Bauhaus Foundation chose the same solution already in place in the existing Bauhaus buildings in Dessau - an electronic master key system with proven CLIQ® technology from ASSA ABLOY.
After a construction phase of almost two and a half years, the new Bauhaus Museum Dessau was opened in September 2019 in a ceremony to mark the 100th anniversary of the State Bauhaus. The new premises with an exhibition area of 2,100 square meters offer visitors to the museum the opportunity to experience the around 49,000 catalogued exhibitions in the second largest Bauhaus collection in the world it its entirety for the very first time. Previously, the valuable collection could only be presented to a very limited extent in the foundation headquarters, the world-famous Bauhaus building. The construction of the new museum is one of the highlights of the anniversary year, as the city of Dessau marks the most important and formative creative periods in the three phases of the Bauhaus history.
The principle of simplicity
The museum design by the architect group Addenda Architects is also based on the ideals pursued by Walter Gropius and his Bauhaus masters and impressed the jury most out of the total of 831 submissions received from all over the world. They see architecture as space design for the social and cultural developments of our time – “simplicity as a principle” is one of the mottos of the young architect office from Barcelona. The building-in-a-building design of the new museum is suitably plain and simple and is the perfect bridge to the existing Bauhaus buildings in Dessau – the world-famous Bauhaus building, the master buildings and the Dessau-Törten housing estate in the south of the city. Inside the glass shell of the museum, the floating “black box” as the heart of the design offers optimal climate conditions for presenting the sensitive collection objects. The generous, transparent foyer on the ground floor, on the other hand, acts as an “open stage”, offering a large amount of freedom for contemporary changing exhibitions and events. On entering the building, everything appears clear, open and transparent.
Clear and simple security concept
The task for protecting the valuable exhibitions and pieces in the new museum was equally clear: In addition to the installed, high-quality materials and the open and plain space division, the necessary technical elements also had to be integrated as discreetly as possible in the sophisticated architecture concept. The particular focus here was on the master key system chosen to protect the high-traffic areas of the Bauhaus Museum Dessau in the future. It primarily had to enable uncomplicated management of access authorisations, as the rooms have to be accessible to a large number of employees, external persons and service providers at different times. Sensitive areas of the museum not accessible to the public also had to be optimally protected from unauthorised access. To guarantee security and to enable easy management of access authorizations, the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau therefore chose the easy-to-retrofit eCLIQ electronic locking system. It integrates sophisticated microelectronics with intelligent data encryption into a premium mechanical lock cylinder system.
Versatile use
The foundation had already had the VERSO CLIQ® system from the ASSA ABLOY brand IKON installed in the Bauhaus building and in the master houses in Dessau. The system has proven itself extremely well there, as Uwe Becker, Managing Director of Becker Sicherheitstechnik GmbH and ASSA ABLOY premium expert partner confirms: “VERSO CLIQ® and eCLIQ are high-end master key systems and both offer the advantage of extensive flexibility and comfort. The keys can be reprogrammed easily and therefore offer extremely individual use in the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau, granting temporary access for tradesmen, cleaning staff and external service providers, for example.” The keys and cylinders are also compatible with the highly design-orientated requirements and installation situations of the doors. They therefore fulfil the design requirements of the Bauhaus school optimally.
Professional and equal partnership
The new eCLIQ master key system for the museum currently includes just over 200 cylinders and 100 available keys. Added to this are around 400 cylinders and keys from the existing VERSO CLIQ® system in the Bauhaus building and the master houses. Thanks to the newly implemented web-based software in the museum, the so-called CLIQ-Web-Manager, the data for the cylinders already installed in the Bauhaus building and the master houses and the keys can be migrated. This enables the Bauhaus Foundation Dessau to manage both master key systems in one system. The responsible supervisors can change access authorisations easily from their workstation in the Bauhaus building and the employees receive the updates instantly via a wall programming device in the museum. The installation of the complex system ran smoothly thanks to the excellent cooperation between Becker Sicherheitstechnik and the foundation. “There are always challenges to overcome when constructing a prestige building such as this. But thanks to the long-standing partnership based on trust, each party knew that they could rely completely on the other at all times. This meant that the delays caused by unforeseen backlogs from other trades during the construction phase could be overcome unbureaucratically and individually with the foundation without any issues”, reports Becker.
Further information on our CLIQ landing page.
Unseren Referenbericht über das Bauhaus Museum Dessau können Sie sich hier herunterladen.