Museum, Freiberg

The renovation and conversion of Schloss Freudenstein, located in the German town of Freiberg, was designed by Berlin-based AFF Architekten. The one-time castle is now a museum. Ah yes, another museum... One sometimes wonders if the world really needs all these much vaunted collections of artefacts from the past and the aestheticism of their architectural presentation. And in fact, the same could be said of architecture in general. The magazines are full of fancy projects – somewhat too full, one might argue, and there are just too many magazines anyway. We laud our post-modern plurality with good reason, yet the boundlessness of that pluralism has by now become nothing short of painful. Nevertheless, I personally am happy that such projects as the new Schloss Freudenstein exist. They make an architecture critic forget his daily preoccupation with a constantly changing mass of images and 'information' and the growing difficulty of distinguishing between mediocrity and excellence.

In 2005, AFF won an open design competition for Freiberg's long awaited museum of mineralogy and mining, and they were able to complete the project – their biggest so far – within a tight time frame and a final budget of 27 million euros. Despite the pressure to deploy every cent and every minute as efficiently as possible on every centimetre of the 6100 square metres, the architects were able to persuade the client to adhere very closely to the line of their winning design.

The castle itself dates back in part to the period of Romanesque architecture. It was later extended into a four-wing ensemble, including a large tower. During the Seven Years' War, from 1756 to 1763, its interior was entirely destroyed. From the late 18th century onwards, what was left of Schloss Freudenstein was used primarily for storage. From the beginning, AFF's concept was to respect the identity of place, while referring in numerous ways to the new use – by focusing on an enclosure motif ('room-within-a-room' or 'box-within-a-box' respectively) at various scales. With an addition in black concrete, the architects have clearly marked the museum entrance in the castle’s courtyard, whose yellow granite paving was designed in collaboration with landscape designer Birgit Hammer from Berlin. While the castle's external structure was retained intact, some changes to the internal structure were necessary because the old wooden floors and the ceiling heights turned out to be inadequate for the new programme.

The small tubular protrusions on the facade were originally intended as window openings but during construction it was realized that they were not really needed for light. Although they are used in some parts of the building to admit daylight, in others they also serve as structural elements, supporting some of the outer walls. New and old stabilize each other, one might say.

Still, the newly inserted rough-textured concrete box containing 2000 m² for the unique Saxon mining archive and associated reading room and presentation area is surely the strongest part of the project. This impressive 340-ton dark grey structure (the architects call it an 'arch') provides the climatic conditions required for its precious contents. Other 'enclosures' inspired by the mineralogical phenomenon of the 'druse' (a rock cavity lined with a crust of projecting crystals) reappear on a smaller scale in the second main section of the building, a vast mineral exhibition due to be opened to visitors later this year.

AFF were delighted to have been awarded the commission for the interior, including almost all furniture and the mining archive exhibition. They have created a restrained atmosphere with occasional playful and surprising moments provided by colour accents and by details such as the reappearing figures from mining iconography.

Summing up, this is a well-balanced and functionally efficient building. It contains a good number of compelling ideas regarding structure, detailing and materials and on top of that, it even looks good. But as every critic knows, words and images are often inadequate when it comes to architecture, and especially in this case: the refurbished Schloss Freudenstein is well worth a visit.