FRANKFURT.- From 16 December 2014, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt has a space of creative experience for children from the age of three to primary school age: the MINISCHIRN. This innovative permanent installation pivoted on the topics of color, form, and structure offers the institution’s youngest visitors an extraordinary games and learning circuit. While children embark on a voyage of discovery on their own in the MINISCHIRN, their parents may visit the current exhibitons at the Schirn with concentration and at ease.

Extending across an area of more than 100 square meters, the various multidimensional presentations and experimental stations at the MINISCHIRN provide the context for a playful expedition through the topical fields of aesthetic perception. Together with Atelier Markgraph, Frankfurter Agentur für Kommunikation im Raum, the Schirn’s art education department has developed a dynamic architectural solution that recalls tree-houses and breaks up the rigid lines of the former Schirn bookshop’s rooms, yet in its clarity reflects the building’s language of forms. The MINISCHIRN offers a stimulating environment in which children may independently and consciously move without their parents or adult guardians under supervision by the art education department’s didactically trained staff. With its MINISCHIRN concept, the Schirn Kunsthalle emphasizes its pioneering role in the art education of children and young visitors and presents itself as a vibrant cultural institution for a diversified public.

“Our MINISCHIRN presents itself as an educational offer for the whole family. While parents may visit our exhibitions in a relaxed and focused manner, their children are welcome to explore the MINISCHIRN and make themselves familiar with the basics of aesthetic education in an entertaining way. Complex aesthetical issues of art are presented in a form suited to be experienced by children and tuned to their mode of learning. Children may give free rein to both their curiosity and enthusiasm for playing, their eagerness to experiment and their urge to create something. The MINISCHIRN program ensures that parents as well as their children will leave the house with an extended knowledge and new experiences,” says Max Hollein, Director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

Lord Mayor of the City of Frankfurt am Main, Peter Feldmann takes pleasure in opening the MINISCHIRN: “The MINISCHIRN is a place where children of all ages and from all walks of life can come together to experiment, play, and learn from one another. A wonderful situation that is unparalleled in Frankfurt—indeed, in all of Hesse!”

Prof. Dr. Felix Semmelroth, Deputy Mayor in Charge of Culture of the City of Frankfurt is thrilled about the opening: “For children, the MINISCHIRN is a unique gift—not only for Christmas—and for their parents it is a valuable investment in their education and in the future of us all. Artistic and aesthetic experiences are the foundation of an individual’s personal development, to which the MINISCHIRN’s program lends wings.”

“The MINISCHIRN is innovative, it is one of a kind—an idea with a future that we were delighted to support,” says Peter Gatzemeier, Chairman of the Dr. Marschner Foundation.

“As a pioneering institution in the field of art education, the Schirn has been offering a comprehensive program dedicated to aesthetic culture for many years. Numerous guided tours and workshops have primarily centered on the confrontation with original works and the playful investigation of our exhibitions’ art works. The MINISCHIRN now allows us to focus on key issues in the aesthetic education of children independent of our changing presentations. This is why the MINISCHIRN as our contribution to the current debate rounds off our extensive education program in an ideal way,” Dr. Chantal Eschenfelder, Head of the Schirn Kunsthalle’s Art Education Department points out.

The open architecture of the MINISCHIRN encourages children to experiment and explore: observing, climbing, or building things, they engage in the principles of order prevailing in the realm of art and the everyday world, get to the bottom of color phenomena, or become enthralled by physical laws. The pedagogical concept of the MINISCHIRN considers the young visitors’ specific developmental differences and offers manifold sensory, motor and cognitive challenges and stimuli on different levels of reception. Various stations help to train the children’s self-effectiveness and problem-solving competence as well as their perceptual capacities based on an interplay between fantasy and creativity. This approach supports children in the development of their personality and their psychomotor progress – an important contribution at a time in which the formation of these skills is frequently missed out on in everyday life.

While adults pay a visit to the Schirn’s current exhibitions, their children may set off on a tour of discovery in the MINISCHIRN on the ground floor of the Kunsthalle. They are charged no admission fee and may stay up to one and a half hours. The differentiated learning circuit of the MINISCHIRN may also be booked by day care centers and schools in combination with an exhibition visit or a special workshop in other rooms of the Schirn. This special offer can also be made use of by private parent-child groups, daycare workers, or as part of a birthday event.

By establishing a specific permanent space of experience for children in the context of an exhibition institution, the Schirn provides a low-threshold offer particularly addressing young families that have not found their way to the Schirn with their children to date.