Museum Küppersmühle

The Museum Küppersmühle (MKM) is a centre for modern and contemporary art located in Duisburg's Inner Harbour in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Opened in 1999, it houses the Ströher Collection, one of the most extensive holdings of German postwar art, and forms part of the Duisburg: Town and Harbour section of the Ruhr Industrial Heritage Trail. Operated by the Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur e.V. in Bonn and directed since its inception by Walter Smerling, the museum occupies a converted former grain mill and has become a significant institution for the presentation of German art from the 1950s to the present.

The museum's origins lie in an industrial milling complex founded in 1860 by local industrialist Wilhelm Vedder. The original mill was replaced between 1908 and 1916 by a seven-storey, three-winged structure, with a western extension containing a freestanding boiler house and chimney added in 1912. Steel silos rising 42.75 metres were erected on the eastern side in 1934. The facility took its present name in 1969 following the merger of Werner & Nicola Germania Mühlenwerke with Küppers Mühlenwerken in Homberg, but closed in 1972. A citizens' initiative saved the threatened building from demolition. In 1999, a municipal grant of 35 million Deutsche Marks (approximately $19 million) from Duisburg enabled the establishment of a museum to display works from the collection of local art collector and real estate developer Hans Grothe (1930-2019). The museum officially opened in April 1999 with approximately 3,600 square metres of exhibition space. Grothe's original collection comprised over 800 works by more than 40 German artists. Following the acquisition of the collection by the Darmstadt-based collectors Sylvia and Ulrich Ströher, the holdings expanded considerably. An expansion project, first conceived in 2008 with a concept resembling Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie, encountered serious setbacks. Construction began in 2009 but was halted in June 2011 when the steel framework of the extension proved defective and unsalvageable, with the responsible construction companies becoming insolvent. The project, by then costing 34 million euros, faced an uncertain future. On 17 December 2014, the Ströhers announced the creation of the MKM-Stiftung to secure the project's future and re-engaged Herzog & de Meuron. Construction restarted in September 2016, with completion achieved in September 2021.

The Ströher Collection ranks among the most comprehensive collections of German postwar art, encompassing approximately 1,500 works spanning from the 1950s to the present. The collection's strength lies in its depth of representation of the most influential German artists of this period, including major figures such as Georg Baselitz, Hanne Darboven, K.O. Götz, Candida Höfer, Gerhard Hoehme, Jörg Immendorff, Anselm Kiefer, Imi Knoebel, Markus Lüpertz, A.R. Penck, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Bernard Schultze, Fred Thieler, Heinz Trökes, and Rosemarie Trockel. The museum also holds works by Joseph Beuys and Abraham David Christian.

The presentation strategy combines permanent collection displays with a vigorous temporary exhibition programme. Up to four changing exhibitions are mounted annually, including retrospectives of renowned artists, thematic group exhibitions, presentations of current artistic developments, and surveys of national art scenes. The museum hosts the exhibition series Akademos, showcasing work by professors of the Düsseldorf Art Academy, and serves as the venue for the annual nationwide competition Jugend Interpretiert Kunst/Deutsche Bank Stiftung Jugend-Kunst-Preis. In 2011, the museum presented an exhibition of sculptures by British artist Tony Cragg transferred from the Louvre, and in 2015 it participated in China 8, a major survey of contemporary Chinese art presented across nine museums in the Rhine and Ruhr region.

The collection is particularly distinguished by its concentration of works by leading figures of German postwar art. Holdings include significant works by Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke, two of the most internationally recognised painters to emerge from Germany in the postwar period. The collection also features major pieces by Georg Baselitz, known for his inverted figurative paintings; Anselm Kiefer, whose monumental works address German history and mythology; and Jörg Immendorff, associated with the Neue Soziale Realität movement. The breadth extends to encompass the conceptual practice of Hanne Darboven, the expressive abstraction of K.O. Götz, and the photographic work of Candida Höfer. American artist James Turrell created two permanent site-specific installations for the museum, planned for unveiling in 2022, adding a significant dimension of light-based contemporary practice to the institution's holdings.

The museum occupies a former grain storage facility at Duisburg's Inner Harbour, converted according to designs by the Basel architects Herzog & de Meuron. The conversion, based on a masterplan by Norman Foster, gutted the industrial structure to create 3,600 square metres of exhibition space across three storeys, with six-metre-high ceilings. Natural light enters through ceiling-high window slits, while the interior surfaces feature grey Turkish basalt. An external staircase attached to the original building provides access.

The 2021 extension, also by Herzog & de Meuron, added approximately 2,500 square metres of exhibition space across five floors, connected to the historic silo structure. The new building extends at ground level toward the motorway and incorporates the previously inaccessible silo tract, which now features a planned viewing platform. The extension is divided into three parts, housing exhibition halls alongside utilities and art-handling facilities. The museum complex thus integrates industrial heritage architecture with purpose-built contemporary museum spaces.

The Museum Küppersmühle is located in Duisburg-Mitte, in the Inner Harbour area of Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is operated by the Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur e.V. in Bonn, with Walter Smerling serving as director since 1999. The museum's website is www.museum-kueppersm一笔hle.de. The institution functions as a public museum with changing exhibitions and permanent collection displays, situated on the Ruhr Industrial Heritage Trail. The extended museum premises, reopened in 2021, offer expanded access to the Ströher Collection and the historic industrial architecture of the site.