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The competition to design a new Bauhaus museum in Dessau, Germany has recevied an entry from Brazil. The project, entitled Bauhaus 360º, intends to open up towards the nearby park and city. The concept has been developed from two key aspects derived from Gropius´ original Bauhaus building: porosity and functionality. Porosity for the architecture can be accessed, visually or personally, by all sides; functionality because it is organized in a served space/servant space. The building can be discovered as you navigate your way around it.
Independently from where one sees it, the view will be dynamic yet welcoming. The proposal has no front or rear side. Aiming to embrace its surroundings, the architecture involves the memorial and the trees, creating different perspectives from and to the building. Also, intending to blend in the site and city, the façade has been proposed in anodised aluminium panels. On the urban scale, the museum is discreet. It is not taller than the buildings that surround it, neither many of the trees on the park.
The building also intends to create a strong relationship with the other Bauhaus buildings in Dessau, acting as a connection node. On the architectural scale, the building is horizontal and its common areas and galleries are only one floor high. The geometry is divided into several "arms". Entrances have higher volumes, and intricate spatial programs have lower volumes. The exhibition spaces, like the museum, are composed of additional volumes. The galleries can be naturally lit, or can use artificial lighting. Retracting louvers have been designed to allow the curator to decide either to have a strong relation with the park and the immediate surroundings or to have a totally closed environment.