A museum dedicated to the Bauhaus, designed by Barcelona studio Addenda Architects, has opened in the German town of Dessau, the former home of the hugely influential design school.
Named Bauhaus Museum Dessau, the simple glass block is located in the centre of the town where the school was based in a building designed by Walter Gropius between 1925 and 1932.

The 5,500-square-metre museum has two major elements ? an open ground floor that will be used for temporary exhibitions and a floating "black box", which contains gallery space to display delicate items from the Bauhaus collection.
"Our basic concept for the museum was to create a large, flexible space so that exhibitions and workshops can take place without feeling restricted in any way by the architecture," said Roberto González, one of the founders of Addenda Architects.
Constructed from a 100-metre-long concrete tube, the black box is designed to provide optimal conditions to preserve sensitive items in the collection and has no natural light.
It is supported solely by two stairwells and sits five metres above the open ground floor, with a 50-metre central span and 18-metre cantilevers at each end.
"The black box hovers five metres above visitors' heads. It is always there, always present ? like the legacy of the historic Bauhaus," explained González.

On the ground floor a flexible space is located between the two stairwells, while there are offices under the cantilever at the bu...