vorarlberg museum

vorarlberg museum: A facade of flowers and panoramic views

This building is also impressive from an architectural standpoint. Over 16,000 blossoms made from concrete adorn the facade, whilst the showroom on the fourth floor is especially awe-inspiring. The darkness of the interior space invites visitors to admire the constantly changing scenery of Lake Constance from an enormous panoramic window.

The museum’s permanent exhibition provides insights into the region’s cultural history and also features changing exhibitions on various topics. The architectural firm Cukrowicz Nachbaur from Vorarlberg designed the architecture of the museum, which integrates historically protected elements. The facade with its 16,656 concrete flowers is especially arresting. Interestingly, these blossoms are actually nothing more than the imprints of commercial PET bottles. The Swiss architect and mathematician Urs Beat Roth helped with the artistic arrangement by geometrically interpreting the concept conceived by South Tyrolean artist Manfred Alois Mayr. From a distance, the viewer recognises only ellipses, squares and other geometric forms, which actually adorn the facade as relief.

Special exhibitions

Inclusive aspects in the vorarlberg museum collection
21 January 2023 until 11 June 2023

Pure joy and pleasure in the creative process, an unbridled creative drive, no requirement to please everyone – that is what lends these works their power and poetry. In a word: art for art’s sake. DIRECT! is far removed from academic guidelines and discourse, with no consideration for trends in the art market. That is priceless. Call it what you want: art brut, outsider art, non-academic art, neurodiverse art, condition-related art, bespoke art, naive art …

• To the special exhibitions of vorarlberg museum

The Vorarlberg artist Miriam Prantl created the light installation Colours/Lights/Lake for the staircase featuring a gentle play of colours that reflects different light atmospheres at Lake Constance. The railing is equipped with LED strip lights whose upward light movement corresponds to the programming of seven light boxes in the stairwell. Slowing down, calming down, contemplation – the effect of the colours and the light attune visitors for the exhibition.

• www.miriamprantl.com

In the Middle Ages, Lake Constance and its influents were at the heart of an economic area from the Alpine passes in Graubünden to the Rhine Falls. Cities formed alliances, agreed upon a uniform currency system, the local people were active in farming, craftsmanship, mining and even developed trade relations with far-off cities such as Barcelona and Bruges. The travelling exhibition of archaeological specialist institutions and museums around Lake Constance with its 150 high-profile finds offers insights into medieval life (approximately 1000 until 1500 A.D.) in the area around Lake Constance.

Core exhibitions

Cosmopolitan City or?
Brigantium in the 1st Century A.D. 

A forum the size of a football pitch, an ancient Roman spa, the craft and trade quarter at the Tschermakgarten in Bregenz – the public and private buildings of Brigantium dating from the first century A.D. all fire up your imagination. Was Bregenz a city during the time of the Romans? There is a lot to suggest that it was, but no clear evidence to confirm this. Based on the most recent scientific findings and archaeological finds, the exhibition invites museum visitors to speculate in a well-informed manner about Brigantium, its residents and visitors.

Permanent Exhibition Second Floor

buchstäblich vorarlberg
Insights into the Collection

Our collection comprises close to 160,000 objects from the fields of archaeology, art, everyday culture and history. The exhibition showcases very important and, at first glance, also less important objects from the museum’s rich holdings in alphabetical order. It starts with the letter “A” for “angelica-mad,” showing engravings by the artist Angelika Kauffmann, and ends with the letter “Z” for “zahla” (to pay), which features the hoard of coins found at Sonderberg Castle. In between schnapps glasses, self-portraits by Edmund Kalb, pommels, the estates of Fritz Krcal and Kundeyt Surdum, priest’s vestments, herbariums …

Coming up

Exhibitions of vorarlberg museum