Culture Vehicle

“If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain.” According to the principle of this proverb, the idea of the culture vehicle was developed, a rolling didactical workshop for continuing education for teachers on site at Hessian schools.

The vehicle shall regularly approach different schools in the entire federal state and provide materials of the subject areas reading, creative writing, theater, art and media.

Seminars, courses, and workshops are conducted inside the vehicle during on site stays for multiple days.

Road traffic regulations restrict the maximum vehicle width to two and a half meters, which provides only a small space to realize the ambitious project. An inbuilt ‘drawer’ remedies this deficiency. Once the vehicle has reached its destination, the drawer is being extended and the interior surface area increases from 28 to 46 square meters in 15 seconds.

All furniture elements have a basic grid of 60 centimeters. They are mounted to a rail system, which allows taking of single elements easily and hooking them back into the system. Thus the spatial use of the vehicle continues to be flexible.

Due to the different colors of the study materials on board, the surfaces of the built-in elements retained their original appearance: The panels are of stainless steel, the cabinets of birch-multiplex tiles, and the wall surfaces of aluminum or twin-wall sheets.


Planning Turkali Architekten
Client Hessian Minstry of Education and Cultural Affairs
Location Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Expert Opinion 1995, 1st Prize
Construction Period 1995
Photography Meyer und Kunz
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Culture Vehicle

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"Drawer" opened and closed

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culture vehicle frankfurt hessian ministry education culture drawer open II
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Interior minimized and extended

culture vehicle frankfurt hessian ministry education culture interior extended
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Shelf Units

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Side Entrance Area