Mercedes-Benz Museum

Mercedes-Benz Museum, designed by UNStudio is located beside the Mercedes-Benz factory in Stuttgart. In 2002, Dutch architectural company UNStudio from Amsterdam won the design competition for the museum. They designed a unique structure with a fascinating exterior façade.

The 25000 sqm MB Museum is consisting of a main rounded triangle atrium and exhibitions areas that are located around this triangle void. Visitors enjoy a trip across the ramps, slopes, and valleys. Exhibition space is hosting 160 cars and 1.500 exhibits that visitors can admire from the top floor to the exit during nine floors.

Lighting design is a very important issue in such a complicated building and much more important to consider since it is a museum. In MB natural and artificial light are used in harmony.
Sunshine is always in the building during the day, through the huge panoramic windows and illuminate the atrium and collection rooms. Natural light is almost everywhere in the building and works dramatically.

Artificial light is used only to point details and illuminate cars like in a theatre stage. 12.000 pcs of lamps are used in the museum. And also there are special designed decorative luminaires in the social areas like restaurant and the bar.

At night the museum is not illuminated from the outside with external projectors but lit from the inside. From the distance, the inside light, coming from the large windows creates a light band effect that reveals the shape of the building.

For the landscape lighting, adjustable in-ground luminaires illuminate the entrance of the building and the big arrows used as guideposts. Drive over in-ground luminaires are used to illuminate the façade at the lower edge. And wall recessed luminaires provide uniform illumination of the paths.

In the entrance area, BEGA in-ground luminaires with a shallow installation depth are flush-mounted in the paving.

Mercedes-Benz Museum is one of the best samples for a modern building with its characteristic architectural structure and also its lighting concept.

It is an incredible experience to admire all the cars from the past to the future in such a theatrical ambient.

As the last word, I should say that to use inside illumination at night is a very good solution to highlight the shape of the building. This is, of course, the success of the architect, who I guess, though the architectural and lighting effects together from the first stage oh the design.

And of course, this solution is more effective and dramatic than using the exterior projectors, that we see nowadays in most buildings washed with colorful LED projectors.

Year: 2006
Client: Daimler Chrysler Immobilien, Berlin
Architects: UNStudio
Location: Stuttgart, Germany
Building area: 35,000 m2
Photos: Daimler AG, Christian Richters, Brigida Gonzalez, Ronald Tilleman, Eva Bloem

Sources:

Mercedes Benz Museum

https://www.bega.com/en/references/mercedes-benz-museum-stuttgart-germany/
https://www.unstudio.com/en/page/12482/mercedes-benz-museum
https://www.archdaily.com/805982/mercedes-benz-museum-unstudio
https://www.world-architects.com/en/ulrike-brandi-licht-hamburg