Kragstuhlmuseum / TECTA-Archive

A Loved Legacy

Museum exhibits can be seen to their best advantage in daylight. At the same time, visitors want to enjoy pleasant room temperatures all year round, a combination which causes potentially enormous efforts, and thus costs, for air conditioning.

The new KRAGSTUHLMUSEUM Lauenförde - the last work of Peter Smithson, inaugurated in autumn 2003 by Walter Gropius' daughter Ati - masters this task. The solar control glass ipasol neutral 73/39 by Interpane combines a lot of natural light (t = 73 percent) with effective solar protection (g-value: 42 percent as per DIN EN 410).

True to the sense of its function towards its visitors, the museum presents itself as a completely glazed building. Almost 1,000 square meters of glass were built into the facade and the skylight band. Thus all areas of the exhibition are well illuminated.  

Photo: Interpane
download image (300 dpi)

The highly selective ipasol neutral 73/39 by Interpane combines high light transmittance (t = 73 %) with a low total energy transmittance (39% as per DIN 67507; 42 % as per DIN EN 410). Excellent insulation (Ug-value of 1.1 W/m²K; according EN 673) in the winter supplements the ipasol characteristics.

The sun insulation effect is achieved by a special coating, which is applied to the glass and virtually invisible. The colour neutrality allows practically unlimited vision from the outside into the inside of the museum. Most of all though, the clear transparency of the glass allows a true-colour examination of the exhibits inside the museum.

A skylight band provides sufficient daylight in the central inside areas. The south-facing part of the skylight is opaque; just like the illumination in artists' studios, only the light coming from the north is caught. Sun protection is not an issue here, therefore the thermal insulation glass iplus neutral S (Interpane) was used for the skylight.

The KRAGSTUHLMUSEUM at the Weser river is the last work of the London architect Peter Smithson. True to the sense of its function towards its visitors, the museum presents itself as a completely glazed building.

Photo: Interpane
download image (300 dpi)

Photo: Interpane
download image (300 dpi)

The highly selective ipasol neutral 73/39 by Interpane combines high transmittance with a low total energy transmission. The colour neutrality allows practically unlimited vision from the outside into the inside of the museum. Most of all though, the clear transparency of the glass allows true-colour examination of the exhibits inside the museum.

Photo: Interpane
download image (300 dpi)

The collection, part of which is the TECTA Archive, comprises hundreds of prototypes as well as original models and designs of modern furniture history. It was the first of its kind and since 1979 had been located at Beverungen Castle.

Photo: Interpane
download image (300 dpi)