PER21

The mother-of-pearl museum in Adorf, a town in the Vogtland with a long tradition of pearl processing, adds a new tower to an ensemble of historic half-timbered houses on the market street. The extension is conceived as a compact, vertical volume of light mineral surfaces, stacked in offset blocks that echo the steep roofs and gables of its neighbours without imitating them.

Narrow vertical openings and recessed glazing give the tower a precious, almost carved quality, a reference to the material the museum is dedicated to. At dusk the interior glows through these slits like a lantern in the townscape. Old and new form a sequence of spaces in which the story of mother-of-pearl, from the river to the workshop, can be told.