Angelika Kauffmann Museum

Schwarzenberg, Austria

Photo © Bruno Klomfar

Museums + Galleries

Architects: Dietrich | Untertrifaller Architekten

Location: Schwarzenberg, Austria
Year: 2007

Placed on a rising slope, west of the village center, two small museums have been established in a historic and well-kept “Wälderhaus” ((typical farmhouse of the Bregenzerwald region). The former living area serves as a local museum and is characterized by the typical bowery anteroom, which the people of Bregenzerwald call “Schopf” (porch). It is protected against wind and weather by windows and ceiling-mounted drop down shutters. The new Angelika Kauffmann museum occupies the space of the former domestic wing and is accessible via the barn floor.
Exhibition walls in subtle white and premium lighting units provide the ideal setting for the exhibited items.

The floor, made of rough sawn fir planks, extends through the exhibition hall. The side walls are divided into three shallow alcoves, separated by slender glazed spaces in which the steel beams, carrying the roof load of the old wooden trusses, come to the fore. The portraits by the great artist from Schwarzenberg, Angelika Kauffmann (1741-1807) come into their own, dimly illuminated in front of the white wall spaces. This building is a diffident and balanced combination of the small and the big world, of tradition and innovation.