stuttgart, pedestrian museums

I arrived in Stuttgart, Germany on Friday evening and I will head into Behnisch Architeken on Tuesday morning. In the meantime, I will focus on three outstanding museums that go to great pains to incorporate public terrain. On the left is the new Mercedes-Benz Museum, a super-sexed trefoil spiral that coils above a landscaped plinth. In the middle is the Kunstmuseum, a pair of nested cubes that support an interstitial walkway and a stepped landscape to their side. On the right is the Staatsgalerie, a sprawling post-modern composition whose statue gallery splits to allow a public walkway to wind up and through. The Mercedes museum stands near the brand's factory surrounded by sports fields, a stadium, an arena, and Stuttgart's main fairgrounds. The other two museums are located in the city's center amidst other cultural institutions, parks, and various scales of shopping centers. Rarely have I seen such a pedestrian-friendly municiple mindset and from the throngs I see shopping, dining, lounging, and strolling, the effort seems to be paying off.