Hans Hollein’s Masterpiece.
Art, Architecture and the City.
Sunday, 28 June 2026, 12 noon – 6 pm
Presentation of Eva Branscome’s new book
on the history of Museum Abteiberg
organized in cooperation with the Architecture Class (Klasse Baukunst) at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
Symposium and guided tours
in the lecture hall, throughout the museum spaces, and around the museum grounds
When it opened in 1982, Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach was celebrated for its innovative integration into the cityscape, a distinction that contributed to architect and artist Hans Hollein receiving the Pritzker Prize in 1985. Eva Branscome’s book offers a fresh perspective on this influential building, which quickly became a pilgrimage site for art and architecture enthusiasts alike.
Eva Branscome is Professor of Architecture and Cultural Heritage at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. Her research on Museum Abteiberg, supported in recent years by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, understands the role of the art museum as a “cultural hinge” that connects, through its architecture and artworks, with the surrounding city. Branscome examines the then-emerging concepts of art and institutional critique that shaped the architecture of Museum Abteiberg: both the rejection of a chronological narrative of art history and how a museum’s building and collection should reflect the city and community surrounding it. Many of the ideas first realized in this building transformed museum architecture at the time and remain enduring calls for new forms of museum practice today.
The event is organized in cooperation with the Architecture Class (Klasse Baukunst) at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where Hans Hollein taught from 1967 to 1976. The guests from Vienna and London belong to the generation shaped by that period and, drawing both on personal experience and on contemporary reassessments, discuss the architectural visions of Hollein, Ron Herron and the Archigram collective, as well as Alvin Boyarsky, the influential director of London’s Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture from 1971 to 1990.
Students from the Architecture Class 2024/25 present designs developed in their workshop reviewing Hans Hollein – experimental exchanges which explored possibilities for extending and reactivating Hollein’s museum architecture.
12:00 pm Welcome
Felix Heinrichs
Mayor of the City of Mönchengladbach
Andreas Beyer
Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Gerda Henkel Stiftung
Professor Emeritus of Art History, University of Basel
Donatella Fioretti
Rector Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
Susanne Titz with Thomas Kröger and Inge Vinck
Director of Museum Abteiberg / Professors of the Architecture Class at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
12:30 pm
Eva Branscome
Hans Hollein’s Masterpiece.
Art, Architecture and the City
Presentation of the German-language edition
1:30 pm
Break at the museum café and on the café terrace
2:30 pm
Nicholas Boyarsky & Eva Branscome
Inventing the Postmodern
Re-recording Alvin Boyarsky in conversation with Hans Hollein
Moderated by Susanne Titz, in English
3:15 pm
Simon Herron, Susanne Isa, Donatella Fioretti, Thomas Kröger and Inge Vinck
Timeliness and Currentness of an Anti-Museum Architecture
Moderated by Eva Branscome, in English
4:00 pm
Break at the museum café and on the museum terrace
4:30 pm
Guided tours with the invited speakers
A. Eva Branscome & Donatella Fioretti (german)
B. Simon Herron & Inge Vinck (english)
C. Susanne Isa & Thomas Kröger (german)
D. Nicholas Boyarsky, Sarah Borree, professor of theory Architecture Class, and Susanne Titz (english)
max. 15 participants per tour
Registration now open with the subject: guided tours
via email mail@museum-abteiberg.de