Kunsthaus

Description

Located in the middle of Stade’s Old Hanseatic Harbour, the Kunsthaus in Stade is housed in a 17th‑century storehouse and combines historic fabric with presentations of contemporary art.

The half‑timbered building on the Schwinge dates from 1667 and is typical of the merchant houses of the Hanseatic period. Goods were once hoisted into the store hatch at the gable by means of a block and tackle; the original crane beam and the storehouse doors have been preserved to this day. The house occupies the highest position in the row of buildings; the representative upper floor facing the street once served as living quarters, while storage space was distributed across several floors.

Originally, the district of Stade established in this building a small museum room on the history of its partner district Goldap in East Prussia. In 1987 the house came under the custodianship of the Museumsverein Stade e. V. Since 2009 the Kunsthaus has presented, in rotating exhibitions, works by important representatives of Classical Modernism and contemporary art; among the artists shown are August Macke, Hannah Höch, Pablo Picasso, Jörg Immendorff, Jonathan Meese and Daniel Richter. Individual presentations are complemented by thematic exhibitions, for example on the subject “Der naive Krieg.”

Today the house functions as the central venue for changing art exhibitions in Stade. Its location within the historic harbour ensemble and the preserved storehouse structures make the Kunsthaus in Stade significant both architecturally and in terms of cultural mediation.