2021-09-21
Interview with architect Michel van Ackere
After the lockdown and months of air travel restrictions, Michel van Ackere – the project manager for the Reinhard Ernst Museum at the Japanese architecture firm of Maki and Associates – was finally able to travel to Wiesbaden again. Normally he would have been on the construction site every six weeks but inconceivable in Covid times with two weeks of quarantine. But now he saw for himself on site how the construction was progressing according to plan – and agreed to give this interview.
Michel van Ackere, welcome to our state capital. How do you like Wiesbaden?
Very much. I have spent quite a few days here at various time in recent years. Ultimately, it was our aspiration as architects that the new museum construction should fit into its own place in the cityscape. That’s why we had to do some intensive research and had time to get to know Wiesbaden more closely.
We’ll get to the construction in a moment. But first, tell us about yourself. What kind of things did you do in your life before ending up with the famous architect Fumihiko Maki in Tokyo?
As my name suggests, my family’s roots are in Europe. My parents emigrated from Belgium to the United States in the 1950s. I was born in Poughkeepsie, a small town in the state of New York. At home we spoke a mixture of French and English. My mother Huguette was a pianist, my father Albert a singer. Both worked as music teachers at Vassar College and we lived directly on campus. In those days, there was a lot of construction on the site, and as a child I was very interested in how new school buildings were constructed. Plus, the library was housed in an impressive building. Even as a small boy, I knew I wanted to be an architect.
What kind of training did you do?
I began my studies at Brown University in Providence, where I studied history of architecture. At the same time, I took courses at the Rhode Island School of Design, in order to supplement my theoretical knowledge by learning practical methods. A one-year semester abroad in Denmark also enabled me to develop my creative skills. Because a course like this is rather expensive in America, I earned some extra money washing dishes and flipping burgers. After four years, I had my bachelor’s degree and as a young graduate I then gained three years of job experience in an architecture firm.
What happened next?
For my master’s degree in architecture, I applied to Harvard University, where I had to submit a portfolio of designs. In those days, everything was of course hand-drawn, as there weren’t any computers yet. Fortunately for me, I was able to secure a place to study in the entering class with around 50 students. I love to think back to those times. One particularly good teacher was the architect Mohsen Mostafavi, who was appointed Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design later on.
Harvard is certainly one of the world’s best universities. Did you then pursue a specific career plan?
I didn’t have to be bothered with such a plan initially, as Harvard University offered me a travel fellowship for a year after graduation. Supported by funds from the university, I was able to do research on machiyas at Kyoto University. These are traditional Japanese townhouses made of wood. I was fascinated by Japanese culture and felt happy in the country. And because the prospect of a job in the United States was rather poor due to the economic situation at the time, I applied to the Itsuko Hasegawa architecture firm in Tokyo when the research project ended. I worked there for two years and was involved in the design and supervision of the construction of a small museum in Matusyama, Japan.
And then you went to work for Fumihiko Maki?
Yes. I had always admired Maki’s work and definitely wanted to learn from and with him. Incidentally, he is also a graduate of Harvard University, and his wife graduated Vassar College in my hometown of Poughkeepsie. My first application didn’t go anywhere but it worked on the second attempt. And next year I’ll be celebrating my 25 years with the company.
What projects were you involved in before you worked at the Reinhard Ernst Museum?
Oh, there were so many! I can give you some cultural buildings as examples, such as the Annenberg Public Policy Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, the new centre for the Jewish Community of Japan in Tokyo, and the Bihar Museum in Patna, India. Of course, I should also mention the House of Hope in Natori. This community centre was created after the tsunami in 2011 as an idea by the Ernsts in cooperation with their friend Fumihiko Maki, and was opened in 2012. On this occasion, I first met Reinhard and Sonja Ernst, whose foundation funded the building. Maki and Associates designed this building pro-bono.
When did you start with the museum in Wiesbaden?
The Reinhard Ernst Museum was originally intended to be at a building site near Limburg. We developed our first draught for this in 2007 but it did not go any further than that. Instead, a new opportunity arose in Wiesbaden. As architects, we much preferred the inner-city location and its position on Wilhelmstrasse is very attractive for visitors. But of course, we had to put together a completely new plan for this new situation, which is why we studied Wiesbaden’s architecture and the museum’s immediate surroundings in detail. In 2011, we presented the design to the design council for the first time and of course were delighted to receive positive feedback from the architecture experts but also from city hall and the general public.
How would you describe how the tasks were divided up?
Fumihiko Maki was responsible for the museum’s design and the building very clearly bears his signature. As for the design itself, he coordinated matters closely with Reinhard Ernst, who is a demanding, knowledgeable client and contributes his ideas as well. As the project director, I am also responsible for the design as well as for organisation. It’s a full time job and I am not involved in any other project at our office – I devote my time exclusively to the Reinhard Ernst Museum. I’m currently supported at Maki Associates by the CEO Yukitoshi Wakatsuki and the architects Ikuko Wada and Azusa Ino. At the same time, I’m of course in close contact with those responsible at the Frankfurt architecture firm Schneider + Schumacher, which is responsible for implementing our plans here in Wiesbaden.
Tell us a bit about the museum and its special features.
Because it’s located in the inner city, the museum has to fit in well with its surroundings. We have divided the building itself into four blocks; the blocks connect with the villas constructed further along Wilhelmstrasse. We reflect the proportions of these villas in our architecture, but of course the design is completely new and modern. The museum is slightly higher than the State Museum, but lower than the old buildings across the Wilhelmstrasse.
The valuable paintings in the building have to be protected from direct sunlight, so there can be no large-scale windows in the exhibition rooms. Nonetheless, we wanted a lot of light to get into the building. This is why the four parts of the building are arranged around a central courtyard, which provides the interior with plenty of indirect light. When you enter the Reinhard Ernst Museum, you’ll certainly be astonished at its amazing brightness. You can also find an interior courtyard like this at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, completed in 2014.
From an international perspective, there are fairly strict regulations in Germany when it comes to sustainability. Germans can certainly take pride in this, even though it makes building more expensive. It was important to both the client and us to include as many German companies and materials as possible in the construction project. In many respects, Reinhard Ernst also went beyond the statutory requirements, for example with the green roof and its solar panels.
From an architectural perspective, Wiesbaden is a city of stone. Which is why it seemed inappropriate to us to cover the museum in metal or wood. At the same time, we didn’t want to use beige or brown stone, but instead convey its own unique character. In consultation with Reinhard Ernst, we therefore selected a very special, brilliant white granite from the United States for the facade. In this particular case, we had to make a compromise about finding materials with short transport routes, as such a special stone was not available in Europe.
The facade sections are currently being installed so we can look forward to the granite cladding. How would you describe the museum’s interior?
The ground floor will look open and inviting. Visitors will never lose their way around the large inner courtyard. You can move around freely inside the museum; there are no instructions about which direction you should walk through the building, but, unlike many other museums, you never feel lost or think you’re “not allowed to walk here”. We dealt with this particular issue and the arrangement of rooms for several months.
Because very specific works of art are exhibited in different proportions, there are very large and high but also smaller rooms in the museum. While circulating between the four programmed parts of the building, you will be able to look out over the city surroundings through large windows – in some cases, five metres wide and approximately ten metres high.
The lines of sight in the museum are unrestricted. Despite the large spaces, there are no columns to block your view. In our initial model, we had planned some supports; we then gave the structural engineers the challenge of removing as many supports as possible. The challenge was successfully managed by the experts at the engineering firm of Bollinger + Grohmann. There is only a single column in the museum office, which had to remain for structural reasons. It should be noted that we typically plan extremely conservatively with regard to structural engineering, because earthquakes occur frequently in Japan. Probably the approach we used in Wiesbaden would not be possible in Japan.
How did coordination of the construction project go during the COVID period?
As we are running projects all over the world, we were already used to doing coordination remotely, even before the pandemic. That said, I’m glad that I can now travel again. We just visited a company in Stolberg to take a look at the terrazzo floors for the museum. Of course, I can have samples sent to Japan. But you can look at a much larger selection directly at the manufacturer and can even discuss and develop new product ideas together. Or if you’re standing in a lift, when you look at certain details, you notice things that can still be improved. This is difficult to do by video conference. Interacting in a team also works even better when you meet face to face.
As an associate in Fumihiko Maki’s architecture office, you are currently only involved with the Reinhard Ernst Museum. What other projects are Maki and his team working on at present?
An art museum in the Japanese city of Tottori is currently at the planning stage. At Keiō University we’re now building an international student residence hall. The office is also working on three larger developments – in Tokyo, Singapore and Manila.
One of the most famous buildings of Pritzker Prize winner Maki in recent times is certainly the 300-metre-high 4 World Trade Centre in New York City, which was opened in 2013 as the first building on the site of Ground Zero. How many buildings has your firm actually put up in Germany?
Maki Associates planned an office park in Munich, which was completed in the mid-1990s. In 2001, this was followed by the opening of an office building we designed in the port of Dusseldorf. The Reinhard Ernst Museum is our third building in Germany.
There are – admittedly few – people who are now looking at the shell with its still unclad facade and say what a clump of concrete, that’s no good for Wilhelmstrasse!
In Japan a building of such importance would be completely scaffolded and kept wrapped. A view of the building would only be allowed once it was finished. The wrapping disappears at the time of opening – like with a Christmas present that you ceremoniously unwrap on the day itself. Many doubts and questions would never even arise during the construction phase. In Germany, this covering until completion is not customary and of course it would involve huge additional costs. However, I’m certain the people of Wiesbaden will be very happy with the result.
Thank you for your positive outlook, Michel. By the way, how did you like the Frankfurt green sauce during our conversation?
Excellent! I can’t get anything like that in Tokyo.