A Perfect Façade
The internationally renowned Abteiberg Museum in Mönchengladbach had to temporarily move into the vacant town theatre, which literally received a facelift for the occasion. Digitally printed fabric was stretched onto frame constructions to create the perfect illusion of an aggregate concrete facade.
Between 18th September 2006 and 4th November 2007, Mönchengladbach’s Abteiberg Museum is closing its doors for renovations. However, the city of Mönchengladbach offered its vacant town theatre to the museum to allow it retain its presence throughout the building works.
To create plenty of attention during this time a temporary architectural facelift was arranged for the town theatre: an imaginary modern museum was to be created which would be in total contrast to the Hollein-style architecture of the original museum. This would be achieved by giving the town theatre an aggregate concrete panel look. The Abteiberg Museum moved into its new premises under the name Museum X on 18th September 2006.
With concrete being much too heavy, too difficult to install and therefore too expensive to implement, it was decided instead to go for a textile-based solution for the project. Fabric digitally printed with an aggregate concrete design was stretched onto sixty frame constructions measuring 2.5 x 5 metres each and attached to the 850 m² façade of the town theatre.
Junkers & Müllers’ TT Bermuda Ink LS SE was used in the production of the frames. The company from Mönchengladbach develops fabrics for digital print for and with the graphics industry. TT Bermuda is a new product that was designed particularly for long-term outdoor use. The material is certified as flame retardant, highly tear proof, water proof, soil resistant, can be cut hot or cold and last but not least is easily processed due to its soft, textile feel.
The fabric could therefore be simply stretched over and stapled onto the frames. For projects of this kind, textile fabrics are much better suited than similar PVC-based materials as their reduced weight and greater flexibility and plasticity makes them far easier to handle and process. Its tear-resistance was even proven during the strong winter storms. The fabric has multiple polymer coatings, which provides the print with great shine and sharp contours, perfecting the illusion to the highest degree.
The fabric was printed onto with the AJ 1000 printer from Roland Deutschland using ECO-SOL MAX inks.
The joint project was implemented by:
Client: Susanne Titz, Director Abteiberg Museum
Concept & Design: Jan Elder, Tim Elder, realities united, Berlin
Textiles: Junkers & Müllers GmbH, Mönchengladbach
Print: Roland Deutschland, Willich