2020-11-03
Construction work, as at 4 November 2020
Our new museum construction is still on schedule and the shell is making rapid progress. This is when one of the most exciting stages begins, because the concrete casting of the cantilevered ceilings will be undertaken during these days. Cantilevered means that the ceilings protrude significantly – without being supported. This is only possible thanks to complex structural calculations. A ceiling of this kind will also be located above the museum bistro later on – to be constructed on this corner:
The “bubbles” are currently waiting to be deployed:
From today, these black hollow objects will be embedded in ceiling cladding and encased in concrete. This makes the ceilings lighter so they may appear to float freely as they extend over a large area.
Red steel girders will support the extensive ceilings for a period of one hundred days. The ceilings are then hardened and self-supporting. The steel supports, as if propped up with a jack, are then lowered and dismantled and in some cases, they are even pulled out of the shell, almost like with Mikado bars.
Unusual shapes and patterns are apparent everywhere on the building site. Here we see a worker on a structurally required built-in module, whose struts will spread out in different directions later on – as in a half-timbered building. This means the load is better distributed.
The black and yellow panels that lie on a wooden substructure look almost like modern art. These are what are known as formwork panels that are required to prepare for the concrete casting process. In this particular case, the ceiling will even be poured like a small gable roof, i.e. with a slight upward bulge. Structural engineers have worked it out precisely – during the drying period, the concrete sinks so far from the apex that it finally becomes a straight level again.
To reinforce the walls, hundreds of metres of steel struts are lying around that are processed by the bar benders:
Even narrow spaces that will be used later as a utility shaft are already visible:
Many artworks from the Reinhard Ernst Collection are large-scale and require lots of space. The new construction has been designed specifically for this. We are gradually getting an impression of the dimensions that the exhibition rooms will have later on. The following image shows the height of the wall in comparison with the height of a construction worker:
The basement and ground floor are largely closed off and many walls are already erected on the first floor. You can follow the rapid progress on Wilhelmstrasse 1 on a daily basis via the webcam, which the project managers on the site incidentally also use to supervise the proceedings.
(Photos: Klaus Helbig/Frank Markburger)