A Historic Museum Transformed with Acoustic Design

How Rockfon Mono Acoustic brings modern performance and visual harmony to the stunning foyer of Stuttgart’s Württemberg State Museum.

Württemberg State Museum, Stuttgart | Case Studies

The bright and spacious Dürnitzhalle foyer, featuring Rockfon Mono Acoustic ceiling design for enhanced visual and acoustic comfort.

Stuttgart's oldest building, reimagined

The Old Palace in Stuttgart, originally a moated castle, is the oldest building in the city. It now houses the Württemberg State Museum, one of the most significant cultural collections in the region, covering four millennia of history through art, objects and glass.

The building's grand foyer, known as the Dürnitzhalle, serves as the main entrance and cultural hub of the museum, a space where visitors gather, use the café, attend lectures and begin their journey through the collection.

Historically, the Dürnitzhalle served as the social centre of the old castle. The redesign aimed to restore that role, creating a welcoming and inclusive space that connects the building's medieval past with a modern museum experience.

But a stone palace with high ceilings and hard surfaces poses a significant acoustic challenge for a space that needs to feel both grand and comfortable.

750m² of ceiling, one chance to get it right

The Dürnitzhalle is a large, open space with the kind of hard surfaces that generate significant reverberation. Stone walls, hard floors, high ceilings. In a busy museum foyer where people gather, talk, eat and listen to lectures, uncontrolled sound makes the space tiring and uncomfortable.

The acoustic solution had to be installed across 750m² of ceiling without compromising the visual character of the space. In a historic building of this significance, that meant no visible grid, no standard suspended tile finish, nothing that would look out of place beneath centuries-old architecture.

The installation also had to be executed to the highest level of precision, leaving no margin for error in a listed building.

Project info

Project name

Württemberg State Museum

Location

Stuttgart, Germany

Architecture

Dipl.-Ing. Pia Elser, Vermögen und Bau Baden-Württemberg

Installation

Reisser GmbH

Photography

Lars Behrendt

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Products used

Rockfon® Mono Acoustic

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The Dürnitzhalle foyer, with café seating below and a walkway above, all under 750m² of seamless Rockfon Mono Acoustic absorbing sound across the full space.

A seamless ceiling in a historic setting

Rockfon Mono Acoustic was installed across the full 750m² of the Dürnitzhalle ceiling. Its seamless white surface absorbs sound across the space while reflecting and diffusing light evenly, brightening the foyer without artificial lighting. There is no visible grid, no pattern, nothing to interrupt the ceiling surface.

The installation was led by architect Dipl.-Ing. Pia Elser, who oversaw every detail of the execution. Making sure the ceiling met both the acoustic requirements and the visual standards expected in a space of this historic importance. Installer Reisser GmbH carried out the work in Aalen.

The bright white ceiling also serves a display purpose. The museum's collection of illuminated glass art objects, drawn from four millennia of history, are showcased in the foyer. The light-diffusing surface above makes sure they are seen exactly as intended.

Where the seamless Mono Acoustic surface meets the original palace walls.

Lighting and ventilation visually integrating into the white Mono Acoustic surface.

The Old Palace in Stuttgart, the oldest building in the city and home to the Württemberg State Museum.

The museum's suspended glass art installation hanging from the Mono Acoustic ceiling.

A foyer fitting its collection

The Dürnitzhalle now functions as the museum envisioned: a welcoming, acoustically comfortable space that sets the tone for everything that follows.

Visitors can hear each other, enjoy the café, attend a lecture and take in the glass art collection, all without the acoustic discomfort that a space like this would otherwise create.

Also working on a historic space where acoustics, visuals and precise installation all need to come together? Get in touch, and together we'll find the right approach.