Schiller National Museum Interior Restoration

The museum, completed in 1903 and extended in 1934, stands on hills above a river valley, forming an ensemble with a literature archive from the 1970s and a modern literature museum completed by the British design team in 2006. A listed building, it combines the roles of museum, memorial, archive and library, and its style recalls the classical period.

Spared from war damage and in use since it opened, the building retains much of its original fabric. The roof, façade and windows had been modernised some years earlier. The new work covered the exhibition rooms on the main floor and the rooms below.

The main galleries, last redesigned in the 1970s, were brought up to date for showing original exhibits. Carpets were replaced with coloured linoleum that better reflects the building’s structure, and the rooms were repainted in colours based on surviving original parts, with doors, frames and details restored.