Wim Westerveld

The Neues Museum Weimar is housed in the former Grand Ducal Museum, which was built in 1869. The building had to be closed after World War II because of the damage it had incurred, and was reopened as part of the “City of Culture” initiative in 1999 with a new name and visual identity. We won a competition to receive this contract. During the design process, we aimed to achieve a clear, neutral appearance. The letters “NM” acted as a “traffic sign” that could be placed over both classical and modern content, or above solid fields of color. We added fluorescent colors and silver so that the visual identity would convey the museum’s intention to become a hub of international avant-garde art – as demonstrated, for example, by the decision to display works from the collection of Paul Maenz upon the museum’s reopening. We used the typefaces Corporate S and Monotype Joanna, combining a relatively slim and formal sans serif for headlines with a high-contrast, tight classic antiqua for body texts.