It is loud this year in the toy museum in Nuremberg. Visitors can only enter through a makeshift entrance. The ground floor is locked. Construction workers pull cables, lay new floors, drill holes. It is being rebuilt.
Such measures require a separate approach. Requests from museum management and scenographers meet what is technically feasible. Exhibition concepts, lighting and visitor guidance must work in the long term. But ventilation, power supply, water connections and much more also pose challenges for the parties involved. If the exhibition is to remain open during the renovation, that must also be thoroughly prepared.
In Nuremberg, the museum management, an architecture office that is responsible for the scenography, and the building department work together. The office is responsible for renovations including architectural planning: new windows, floors, ceilings, ventilation and so on.
Everything should be brighter, more visitor-friendly, with a new concept, says museum director Karin Falkenberg: “Toys should be presented in connection with society and its questions, because toys are a dialogue with the world.” On the ground floor she shows how toys explain the world and make it understandable.
“You need an emotional dramaturgy”
Johanna Sunder-Plassmann, scenographer in the Sunder-Plassmann & Werner scenography office in Hamburg, planned the interior design: “This includes the interior design as well as the exhibition graphics, the lighting and the arrangement of the exhibits.”
There she saw a need for action. Because until now the objects were classified according to collector criteria, for example according to material. That is no longer in keeping with the times, explains Sunder-Plassmann: “You need an emotional dramaturgy and an eye-catcher per floor for the eye.”
Shortly after the moon landing, toy astronauts also landed in children’s rooms. And in the museum.
(Photo: Daniel Karmann / picture alliance / dpa)
She was unable to enforce all of the ideas. “We would have preferred a wooden floor, but that was not possible for technical reasons,” she gives an example.
The museum management and scenographers also reached their limits with the ceiling. They would have liked to have had more height here. Underneath, however, cables are drawn, noise protection inserted, light rails integrated, explains Andrea Seitz, Head of the Culture Department at the Building Department: “The height could not be changed, so we had to design the rooms in such a way that they still appear large and bright.”
In order to achieve this, it was time to build the structure. A lot of wall was chiseled out of the backyard. Now there is a 4.2 meter wide, ceiling-high window front with a wing door. As a rule, structures do not go along with such interventions without further ado. “We had to intervene in the statics, a structural engineer calculated where and how we could open the front,” says Seitz.
It was clear from the start that the museum should continue to operate during the months of work, says Falkenberg: “We have 120,000 visitors a year, so we can’t just close.”
So a plan had to be found for how visitors could get into the museum while the actual foyer was being built. Many discussions were necessary, says Falkenberg: “We opened a passage in the adjoining building, laid cables for electricity and internet, removed the reception counter and rebuilt it elsewhere, and developed an interim control system.”
The building department had a footbridge with a roof and other temporary arrangements built, and changed a railing. Particular attention was paid to the entrances, explains Seitz: “The escape routes must continue to function.”
A restriction could not be avoided. The elevator is not accessible. Strollers and wheelchairs must remain outside. “Unfortunately, if you can’t walk, you can’t get in at the moment,” regrets Falkenberg.
What about the alarm system?
In addition, she has thought of a special group of visitors. The wooden toys were previously on the ground floor. And that has fans. “So that it doesn’t mean that my favorite toy is not there, we have distributed the most important exhibits on other floors,” says Falkenberg. The rest, at least ten boxes, went to the depot.
After the temporary arrangements had been set up, the next step followed: The house was divided into a construction site and a visitor area. So that the workers can act freely, the entrances to the main staircase were barricaded with beams, explains Falkenberg: “It’s like in the Middle Ages.”
A special exhibition in 2004 was devoted to the topic of ‘Don’t get angry’. The picture shows the oldest of these games from 1915.
(Photo: Peter Roggenthin / dpa / dpaweb)
Just as tourists are kept out, workers must come in unhindered. It is important to have an eye for details. For example, the alarm system must not go off when the craftsman opens the construction site door.
Dust walls should keep the dirt out of the exhibition. But that only worked to a limited extent, reports Falkenberg: “We had to keep cleaning the showcases.” But not only that. When the jackhammer ran, the building vibrated. Doll dishes rattled, figures tipped over. “In the evening, when the construction workers were gone, we went through and put everything back up,” says Falkenberg.
To completely decouple the exhibition from the works, that doesn’t work. Some visitors complained, mostly about the noise. But with such projects you can’t tell the craftsmen that they are only allowed to work loudly between nine and 10.30 a.m., says Seitz: “At some point the time has come when you have to say that construction is going on now, and that also has right of way.” Falkenberg used quotes from Bob the Builder to cheer up the mood of annoyed visitors and the noisy team.
The planners had it comparatively easy because only the facade from the 17th century is listed. The building behind it dates from the 1960s and was therefore allowed to be renovated and rebuilt without restrictions.
Historic buildings can also be renovated
Often it is different. Many museums are located in historical buildings. But that doesn’t have to be a hindrance, on the contrary, as Andreas Hensen, director of the Lobdengau Museum in Ladenburg, has found out. The museum is housed in the former, listed bishop’s court. In order to gain space for special exhibitions, he integrated a former apartment in the same building into the museum. “I was not sure whether the installation of a modern lighting system on the ceiling would be in accordance with the requirements for the preservation of historical monuments, but that was not a problem,” says the museum director.
On the contrary, the renovations even met the preservation of historical monuments. “A connection between two rooms that once existed and was bricked up in the last century has been reopened,” says Hensen.
Construction work does not always take place during ongoing operations. The Alpine Museum in Munich has closed its doors until mid-2023. “It was clear from the start that the measures would be too costly,” says Friederike Kaiser, Head of the Culture Division at the German Alpine Association. Walls drawn in afterwards come out, foundation walls remain in place. “The conservationists liked that, but we have to design the entrance area differently than planned,” says Kaiser.
It was also clear that the options were limited. The exhibitions gain 200 square meters, the library and lounge get 120 square meters. “For this, the collection depot and the archive were outsourced,” says Kaiser.
In Nuremberg, the ground floor has recently been reopened to visitors. The new concept for the other three floors is ready. Sunder-Plassmann has already drawn up plans: pry open the bricked-up windows, remove the loft to gain more room height, replace 30-year-old carpets. Everything back in operation. But visitors will not be restricted again anytime soon. Because the renovations on the ground floor, including the new air conditioning, cost 500,000 euros, says Falkenberg: “At the moment we have no money for the next step.”