Reinhard Ernst Museum

The Museum Reinhard Ernst is a museum of abstract art in Wiesbaden, Germany, located at the corner of Wilhelmstraße and Rheinstraße in the city centre. Opened in June 2024, it presents selections from the private collection of entrepreneur Reinhard Ernst, who has assembled more than 960 works since the 1980s. The institution is operated by the Reinhard & Sonja Ernst Foundation and is distinguished by its purpose-built architecture by the late Japanese Pritzker Prize laureate Fumihiko Maki, its concentration on post-war and contemporary abstraction, and its status as one of the most significant new museum projects in Germany in recent years.

The museum traces its origins to a planning process that began in 2010, arising from the long-standing friendship between Reinhard Ernst and architect Fumihiko Maki. In 2016, the Reinhard & Sonja Ernst Foundation proposed to the city of Wiesbaden that it would finance, construct, and operate a museum from its own resources. Following a citizen participation procedure, the city leased a centrally located site to the foundation for 99 years with broad, cross-party approval. Construction of the building cost more than 80 million euros. The museum was originally scheduled to open in 2023 but was inaugurated on 23 June 2024. Maki died on 6 June 2024, just days before the opening. Oliver Kornhoff, an art historian, has served as founding director since 1 December 2021.

The collection of Reinhard Ernst numbers over 960 works and is focused on three principal areas: abstract German and European post-war art, abstract Japanese art, and American Abstract Expressionism. These historical holdings are complemented by contemporary positions, including commissions created specifically for the museum by artists such as MadC, Tony Cragg, Katharina Grosse, Karl-Martin Hartmann, and Bettina Pousttchi. The museum's display policy rotates works from the collection and incorporates loans from other institutions according to exhibition themes. A defining feature of the collection is its holding of 52 paintings by Helen Frankenthaler, which constitutes the largest collection of her work in the world.

The museum displays approximately 60 works at any given time, drawn from the larger collection. Artists represented include Tony Cragg, Helen Frankenthaler, Karl Otto Götz, Hans Hartung, Damien Hirst, Yuichi Inoue, Morris Louis, Jackson Pollock, Neo Rauch, Judit Reigl, Pierre Soulages, Toko Shinoda, Frank Stella, Atsuko Tanaka, and Wolfgang Tillmans. The foyer contains glass works by Katharina Grosse, MadC, Karl-Martin Hartmann, and Bettina Pousttchi, while the inner courtyard features sculptures by Eduardo Chillida. Among the commissioned works are a large-format glass piece by Katharina Grosse titled Ein Glas Wasser, bitte, a luminous red sculpture of vertical guardrails by Bettina Pousttchi, and a bronze sculpture by Tony Cragg exceeding six metres in height.

The museum building was designed by Fumihiko Maki and executed by the Frankfurt architectural firm Schneider + Schumacher. The structure covers 9,700 square metres with approximately 2,500 square metres of exhibition space across four levels, though Maki's design is described as three-storey. The building has a rectangular footprint of roughly 46 by 65 metres and a parapet height of 20 metres, with a basement extending 8.5 metres deep. Its exterior is clad in luminous white granite, earning it the local nickname Zuckerwürfel (sugar cube). The design responds to the surrounding urban fabric by echoing the lines and edges of neighbouring buildings and re-establishing the corner of Wilhelmstraße and Rheinstraße as an entrance to the street, a function previously served by the pre-war Grand Hotel Victoria. Visitors enter via a flight of steps or a ramp on Wilhelmstraße, leading to a fully glazed, open atrium that admits natural light throughout the ground floor. The upper floors are divided into four quadrants around this central courtyard, with the white granite-clad volumes appearing to float above the glass base. Structural engineers achieved column-free exhibition spaces, enabling generously proportioned, interconnected rooms with varying heights and areas; the largest room measures approximately 340 square metres, while the highest reaches 14 metres. The site is enclosed by an evergreen hedge, and accessible parking spaces are provided.

The Museum Reinhard Ernst is situated in central Wiesbaden, to the north of the Hesse Ministry of Finance building and the Hesse Museum of Natural History. It is owned and operated by the Reinhard & Sonja Ernst Foundation. The museum pursues an educational mission as a Dritter Ort, or third place, a publicly accessible space for encounter and engagement with art and culture. To this end, mornings are reserved exclusively for school classes and educational institutions, and children and young people up to 18 years of age receive free admission. The museum foyer is open free of charge to all visitors, allowing access to contemporary artworks without requiring a museum ticket. The institution also hosts events, exhibitions, and educational activities for children.