EVOLUTIONEUM II — bruschystudio

bruschystudio

Evolutioneum II

CATEGORY

Architecture
Workshop (AAC - Academy for Architectural Culture)
Museum

COLLABORATION

Matthias Dexheimer
Jacques Baetje
Malte Gaertner

LOCATION

Hamburg, Germany

YEAR

2015

TUTOR

Sona Kazemi

MANAGEMENT

Prof. Dr. h.c. mult. Dipl.-Ing. Meinhard von Gerkan (President of the AAC) and Dipl.-Ing. Architekt Nikolaus Goetze

The Workshop

The 2015 workshop by the Academy for Architectural Culture, entitled Evolutioneum, explored ideas for a future-oriented natural history museum in Hamburg.
More than a revival of the former Natural History Museum—destroyed in 1943—the Evolutioneum aims to unite research, collections, and exhibitions within a single building. It will serve as both a public cultural space and a professional scientific facility.
The project, initiated by Hamburg University in collaboration with CeNak, focuses on three core components: sensory-rich exhibition spaces, a non-public research cluster, and a compact, accessible storage area.

There are currently two different scenarios in terms of the selection of a site for the Evolutioneum – one is the historic building of the former telecommunications office in the direct urban context of the Rotherbaum district. This is perfectly suited to an important cultural use owing to its large-scale construction and direct proximity to the university campus. The other is the western point of the Baakenhafen quay, which has all the characteristics of a symbolic and highly conspicuous site for a museum building built by the water.

The first workshop documented here with the historic building of the former telecom- munications office.

The Natural History Museum

The Naturhistorische Museum Hamburg (Hamburg Museum of Natural History) existed from 1843 to 1943. Initially housed in the Johanneum building, the museum moved in 1891 to its own site on Steintorwall, near other major cultural institutions. Over time, various collections—botanical, mineralogical, anthropological, paleontological, and zoological—were reorganized or relocated.

In 1943, the museum building was destroyed during World War II air raids and never rebuilt. Its legacy continued with the opening of the Zoological Museum Hamburg in 1983.

Concept

From the Latin evolverev - to unfold, to unroll - evolution speaks not of sudden change, but of a process, a quiet revealing. It implies a development, an emergence rather than an imposition. In German, entwickeln carries the same idea: to unroll, to reveal what is already there.

Gesture

With a commitment to preserving the integrity of the existing building, our approach from the outset was one of restraint—a minimal intervention, guided by necessity rather than ambition.

At the core of the building, we introduced a slender glass volume, a quiet insertion that now alloes to connect the east and west wings, and bridges the north and south. This transparent passage not only solves the building's circulation—at the moment confined to its perimeter—but also becomes a space of encounter, where part of the collection is revealed along the way.

The most significant transformation lies above: the top floor, now redesigned as an open, fluid expanse for the permanent exhibition. Stripped to its structural elements, the space holds the collection in a series of light, adaptable displays—elements that echo the passage of time and the evolving nature of what we choose to preserve.

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