Museum of the Celts and Romans in Manching
Manching is regarded as the best-researched former Celtic settlement in Europe. Built to a tight budget, this 100-metre-long museum has an exhibition space on the upper floor largely enclosed in translucent glazing, which is illuminated at night by fluorescent lighting. The gallery is set on top of a concrete plinth structure housing the store and administration, with an open, glazed ship hall at one end. Access to the entrance on the upper level is via an 80-metre walkway over a trench with excavations which is filled with water at high tide. An exposed grid of trough-like soffit elements spans the 18-metre width of the 400 m² entrance hall without intermediate columns, allowing maximum flexibility. To the left of the entrance is the space for temporary exhibitions in the form of an introverted black box; to the right, the route through the permanent Celtic exhibition begins – the largest space in the building, with an area of 800 m². This gallery is daylighted through floor-height glazing to the north face. While the foyer is distinguished by noble maple finishes, simpler materials were used in the exhibition spaces, such as stone-like screeds and sandblasted concrete walls, which create a restrained background for the exhibits. Narrow routes lead past the media space to the Roman section of the exhibition. From a gallery, one has a view into the almost 10-metre-high ground floor ship hall, to which staircases lead down.
