Story

The Porsche Museum Stuttgart

January 21, 2022

When I traveled for the first time to the famous Porsche Museum, I had the impression to touch holy ground. Okay, this sounds maybe a bit too much, too pathetic, but I felt like this. I have had a look at the Porsche Werk 1 and thought about the famous legends must crossing the gate over the years to sign a contract or having a chat with Ferry Porsche or whatever. The area of Porsche in Stuttgart is a bit like entering a different universe, leaving the real world, walking or driving into the Porsche world. Something like the holy grail.

The way from the city by car is not very spectacular, not very nice, industrial buildings and stuff like this, not inspiring by the quality of architecture. But then , after the last corner is done, the first thing in sight is the really huge Porsche monumental located in the center of a rotary traffic.

It reminds me on the monumentals at Goodwood for the Festival of Speed. The Porsche monumental is all white, very high, and shows three all white Porsche 911 of different times. It is a breathtaking work of design and architecture but also a masterpiece of engineering. I wonder how this construction is able to stand like this, just amazing.

At the opposite of Werk 1 a very modern building attracts attention. It seems to be a bit too modern, a bit too huge. The building made by glass, steel and white painted concrete is the Porsche Museum. The first ideas for this museum were created in the early 2000 years, one idea was a combined museum with Mercedes Benz, but this couldn’t be realized. Porsche has to make a decision for their own museum and decide to build it at the Porsche Platz by giving the aera a new face.

The working process were started on October 17th in 2005. The architectural plannings was done by the Austrian design office DELUGAN MEISSL ASSOCIATED ARCHITECTS located in Vienna. The shell construction was finished in February 2007. In October 2008 the first small pieces for the exhibition were displayed and on 31rd of January in 2009 the museum opened to the public.

Since than over one million people visited the museum, enjoying the journey through the Porsche history of racing and building road cars.

The architects create a very impressing building with a complex structure, actually the museum is build from „two buildings“. The base with the garage and the entrance area and the so called flyer on top of this basement, which is hosting the exhibition space.

From the outside the museum is very large, very high and impressive, but at the inside it is smaller than expected. My very personal opinion is that there are a lot to much architectural structures, lines and materials inside, which is reducing „clear“ space for the cars and the exhibited automobilia. Yes, of course, the Porsche Museum is an eyecatcher from the outside, a true landmark, the mirrors at the roof of the overhanging top floor of the building gives very cool photographic motifs. But the exhibited racing- and road cars of one of the greatest car manufacturers in the world deserved a bit more, I think. I know a few museum buildings which are better designed as their exhibits and sometimes this make sense, but not at Porsche, where the cars are the heroes. As I said before, these are my personal feelings and emotions on the Porsche Museum Stuttgart. But nevertheless the museum is always worth a visit and I will visit it again when I will be back in Stuttgart next time.

Because of the cars and the Porsche history, I really love it to go there. And one highlight is located at the entrance area, a very large glass which allows a view to the museums garage and of course there is also a very fine museum shop and two restaurants.