Stone Sculpture Museum

Stone – fascinating matter

The message of the Stone Sculpture Museum in Bad Kreuznach which bears the signature of the international award-winning architect? An invitation to indulge in the fascination of stone. In the midst of a terrain that is, as it were, shaped by this elementary material: In a northerly direction, the Rotenfelsen (Red Rock) towers majestically above the roughly 15,000-square-meter site with its dozens of stone sculptures. From 1968 to 2001, the open-air studio of the sculptor couple Anna Kubach-Wilmsen (1937-2021) and Wolfgang Kubach (1936-2007) was located there. In 1998, the couple donated the area to create what is now the Sculpture Park. Centrepiece of the project is the museum building, designed by Tadao Ando as a replica of a half-timbered barn, typical of the Hunsrück region, from the 18th century. In 2010 the world’s only contemporary stone sculpture museum opened to visitors.

An inner relation to the earth

Admittedly, it is not quite a barn in the classic sense, with its two extraordinary museum courtyards, one with a water surface, one with gravel, its mezzanine, the many windows, the glazed gables, and free-standing exposed concrete walls, whose visual axes play with the visitor’s gaze and open it up to the natural surroundings. The architect is known for combining traditional with modern elements: The museum’s concrete base appears cool, with its clear geometry and, according to Tadao Ando, at the same time it is delicate, “smooth like velvet” and “soft like water”. The upper part of the structure, with its wooden beams painted in a strong brown, the timber frames, and the slate roof, all of it characteristic of half-timber building, forms a pristine contrast. Clay earth, in the interior walls and the timber frame, enhances the rustic feel and naturalness. Which building material, after all, is more closely related to the earth which produced the minerals and rocks exhibited in and around the museum? A visit to the museum is a stroll among these stony witnesses of time while drinking in the atmospheric scenery of a spa town, and being charmed by the surrounding vineyards, cliffs and forest. The exhibits, all of them impressive sculptures by the artist couple Kubach-Wilmsen, come from all continents of the world: marble, river rock, granite, given shape as a book tower, a bridge, a blackboard. Exhibited in order to tell their own story and to make the fascinating relationship between earth and stone tangible.

Visitor Tip: On July 4^th, the anniversary exhibition TADAO ANDO / MUSEEN / RICHARD PARE opened.