vienna, museumsquartier

The Museum Moderner Kunst (right) shares a sheltered plaza with the Leopold Museum (left). Enclosed in their courtyard, neither building enjoys the urban command of Stuttgart's Kunstmuseum. However, their urban design strategies are remarkably similar. All three announce themselves as hermetic prisms while extending programmatically under the public domain. This can be seen in the giftshop/cafe-cum-public stairs attached to both volumes. Upon ascending these stairs one reaches more intimate spaces (that of the Museum Moderner Kunst is pictured at center) before vaulting up through an older building's roof to a series of artist-in-residence studios. In Stuttgart the significant grade change was an obvious topographic factor. In the Museum Quarter, surrounding buildings shield the city's natural slope. The vaulting stair absurdly puncturing the center image's red roof actually reconnects with the next street at grade.