The Mercedes-Benz Museum intricately combines structure and content. The Museum’s unique structure reflects a collection in which technology, adventure, style and distinction are merged. The structure of the Museum is based on a trefoil. Both in its internal organisation and in its outward expression this geometry responds to the car-driven context of the museum. Inside, walking down the ramps of the Museum, the visitor is reminded of driving down the highway.
The Museum reproduces the values associated with Mercedes-Benz: technological advancement, intelligence, and stylishness. The entrance lobby introduces visitors to the organisational system of the museum, comprising two types of exhibitions over three ‘leaves’, connected to a central ‘stem’ in the form of an atrium.
Visitors proceed from top to bottom; the ride up the atrium functions like a time machine taking visitors back to 1886. The ‘legend’ spaces are ordered chronologically from top to bottom, the three oldest cars displayed in a space dedicated to the invention of the car. The ‘collection’ spaces running in parallel are thematically organised. Visitors take one of two spiralling ramps down; the first linking the collection of cars and trucks, and the second, connecting legend rooms, which display the history of Mercedes-Benz in seven scenes. The two spiralling trajectories cross each other continuously, mimicking the interweaving strands of a DNA helix, thus making it possible for the visitor to change trajectories.
