The Langen Foundation was opened in Hombroich on the Lower Rhine in September 2004. Since the NATO missile base was closed here in 1993, the concept of the Museum Island in Hombroich has been successfully realised in just a few years.
In line with the theme "Art and Nature in Parallel", arsenals were transformed into ateliers, air raid shelters into biotopes and earth walls into space structuring objects.
The conscious aim was to preserve the location’s history and transform it into a cultural site. The Langen Foundation has succeeded in making the hitherto somewhat small buildings into an architectural highlight.
Tadao Ando designed a site for Viktor and Marianne Langen’s art collection - some 500 works of Japanese art and 300 works of modern art - which is inspired by the pure and sensitive language of his architecture. Embedded in the hilly landscape of the former missile base, the architecture comes to life in the contrast between simple geometric shapes and natural environmental influences. Light slits, outward views and inward views accentuate the inner area and link it to the outer area. Incident daylight vitalizes the massive concrete walls and creates an ever-changing impression, depending on the weather and position of the sun. This harmonious correlation of light gives the architecture its poetic strength.
