Kunsthalle Mannheim

The Kunsthalle Mannheim is a museum of modern and contemporary art located on Friedrichsplatz in Mannheim, in southwestern Germany. Built in 1907 and established as a municipal institution in 1909, it has served for more than a century as the principal venue for the city's art collections and temporary exhibitions. Its holdings span from Édouard Manet to Francis Bacon in painting and from Auguste Rodin to contemporary figures in sculpture, making it one of the most significant public collections of modern art in Germany.

The Kunsthalle Mannheim's collection encompasses approximately 1,500 to 2,150 paintings, around 840 sculptures, and roughly 33,000 works on paper including drawings, watercolors, and prints. The graphic collection was not developed with an aim at completeness but rather pursues focused strengths: drawings of the Romantics and Classicists, works of the New Objectivity, sculptor's drawings, and European prints from the 15th to the 18th centuries including Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt van Rijn. The painting collection concentrates on the 19th and 20th centuries, while the sculpture collection is especially significant for the 20th century. Since the 1930s the museum has maintained an outdoor sculpture garden for contemporary works.

The painting collection includes works by Caspar David Friedrich, Johan Christian Dahl, Édouard Manet, Alfred Sisley, Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, Hans von Marées, Carl Schuch, Oskar Kokoschka, Christian Rohlfs, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Edvard Munch, August Macke, Robert Delaunay, Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Francis Bacon, Karl Otto Götz, and Franz Xaver Fuhr. The sculpture collection features Constantin Brâncuși, Honoré Daumier, Auguste Rodin, Medardo Rosso, Ernst Barlach, Edgar Degas, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Alexander Archipenko, Jean Arp, Barbara Hepworth, Henri Matisse, Marino Marini, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Richard Serra, Ossip Zadkine, Eduardo Chillida, George Segal, Wolf Vostell, Ulrich Rückriem, and others. The 2018 extension building houses a major collection of 38 works by Anselm Kiefer on long-term loan from businessman Hans Grothe.

The original building was designed by architect Hermann Billing and completed in 1907. Although intended as a temporary structure for the anniversary exhibition, it was retained and converted into a permanent municipal gallery. The building takes a T-shaped plan with three wings, the central block crowned by a dome; its red sandstone facade was executed in Jugendstil (Art Nouveau). Rather than facing the grand Friedrichsplatz directly, it was set back with its main entrance on Moltkestraße, leaving space originally intended for the Reiss-Museum. The building was renovated between 2000 and 2013. In 1983 an extension designed by Hans Mitzlaff opened, specially conceived for the sculpture collection and executed in red sandstone to harmonize with the original structure. This Mitzlaff building was demolished in 2018 and replaced by the larger Hector building, designed by Hamburg-based architects Gerkan, Marg and Partners with project architect Nikolaus Goetze following an architectural competition held in 2012. The new building, realized with a 50 million euro donation from SAP co-founder Hans-Werner Hector and his wife Josephine, comprises 1,200 square meters with seven exhibition halls and a 22-meter-high glass-roofed atrium; its concrete, glass, and steel structure is enveloped in bronze mesh. The new entrance since 1983 has been located on Friedrichsplatz.

The Kunsthalle Mannheim is situated at Friedrichsplatz in the center of Mannheim, Germany. It is owned by the city and operates as a municipal institution. The museum presents its permanent collection in thematic rooms spanning from Romanticism to Realism, alongside annual special exhibitions of international contemporary art. Since the 2018 reopening, visitors enter through the new building on Friedrichsplatz, with the historic Billing building and its Jugendstil interiors forming an integral part of the museum experience. The institution maintains its website at https://www.kuma.art/.