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The new Daimler-Benz Museum, planned by architects Rolf Gutbier and Hans Kammerer, was dedicated in 1961 on the 75th anniversary of the invention of the automobile. An outstanding architectural setting for the collection on the brand history of Mercedes-Benz had been created between administrative buildings and factory halls. In the “Automobil-Revue” of 1961 August Christ called the Museum “indeed the most valuable documentation of the motor industry.” In contrast, the two architects summed up their job in a very down-to-earth way: for one of the still vacant and centrally located areas of the Daimler-Benz site in Untertürkheim they had been requested in 1955 to design a multi-functional building encompassing the Museum, offices, a lecture hall and other rooms. Gutbier and Kammerer saw in this assignment nothing less than a challenge “to create a center for the Daimler-Benz works.”
A vacant lot measuring 72 by 46 meters was provided. The Museum thus had to grow into the sky to offer enough room. As the planners wanted to achieve the greatest possible transparency between Museum and factory, the structure was characterized by large glazed areas at the front and two glazed inner courts. The architects’ design carried this transparency inside the Museum too with a system of galleries, plus exhibition rooms with different floor-to-ceiling heights. Instead of massive pillars the building featured a structure made of steel supports with cruciform cross-sections; removed to behind the façade, they created an extremely light impression.
The result was a Museum building with 42,000 cubic meters of walled-in space and around 3,250 square meters of floor space, including 1,200 square meters of exhibition area. This was supplemented by 1,000 square meters of office space, 700 square meters for technical rooms and 1,200 square meters for underground garages and store-rooms. On the ground floor, right in the entrance hall, in addition to the historic collection the current Mercedes-Benz product range now also could be viewed (satisfying the demand raised in the 1950s).
However, when the new Daimler-Benz Museum opened on February 24, 1961, the interest of the guests and media concentrated mainly on the historic collection. The exhibition with its 120 or so exhibits was an expression of continuity, from the invention of the automobile to contemporary technical innovations. But the Museum broadened outlooks, searching the past before 1886 for inventions and experiments which led to the independent development of the motor vehicle by Daimler and Benz. In his opening address, Professor Dr. Fritz Nallinger, member of the Board of Management and Chief Engineer of Daimler-Benz AG, emphasized the importance of the Museum also as a monument to the employees of the Company: The Untertürkheim, Sindelfingen and Berlin-Marienfelde plants issued from the Daimler shop in Cannstatt; the Mannheim and Gaggenau plants from the Benz shop in Mannheim T6, 11. Generations of blue- and white-collar workers, he said, had labored in these factories, and the displayed originals stood for their achievements, just as the exhibits were a testimony to Company history.
In 1961 the exhibition comprised more than 100 vehicles plus engines, technical components and models as well as documents. The historic exhibition was arranged chronologically: the invention of the automobile and the preceding historic events and the pre-1926 vehicles had their place on the ground floor. Vehicles and chassis from Mercedes-Benz along with engines for boats, rail vehicles and aircraft could be seen on the next floor, and on the floor above that the racing history was presented.
At the dedication, Daimler-Benz underscored the connection between brand history and the current work: on opening day the exhibition included the Mercedes-Benz 220 SE in which Karl Kling and Rainer Günzler won the Algiers – Central Africa Rally just a few weeks earlier. And the new Mercedes-Benz 220 SE coupe was introduced as part of the Museum opening ceremony.
Reactions to the new Museum were very favorable. As opening day approached there was hardly a doubt that the new building would be a big success. In the years before, the number of visitors even in the temporary exhibition room had risen to around 60,000 to 80,000 annually, about half of them guests from abroad. After the new Museum opened, interest increased a great deal more. The opening year saw 95,127 guests visit the Museum, including 26,732 from abroad.
During the opening ceremony, Professor Dr. Fritz Nallinger emphasized the special significance to Daimler-Benz of cultivating history even in hard times: “Very soon after the main work of reconstruction in Untertürkheim had been completed in the post-war years, the management of our Company decided to reunite our salvaged exhibition items in a special room and open it for viewing. With a great deal of effort and the sacrifice of plant space, we managed to create a temporary Museum. How right we were in doing this is shown by the mere fact that from 1951 through today this provisional Museum has been toured by some 540,000 visitors, about 40 percent of them foreigners.”
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