wArtehalle

The wArtehalle is a tiny museum in the village of Welchenhausen, deep in the Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm. Built in 1995 as a bus shelter for children, it measures only ten square metres and is one of the smallest art museums in Rheinland-Pfalz. The building soon lost its original purpose when only one child still used it, so local people turned it into an exhibition space. The Museumsverein wArtehalle Welchenhausen e.V. was formed and the village council gave the society permanent use of the shelter. In August 2002 the wArtehalle opened as a museum with several new shows each year.

The museum belongs to two cultural trails: the KultOUR-Talstraße and the Skulpturenweg Welchenhausen. There is no room inside for visitors to sit during openings, so an old shed beside the shelter was roofed over and fitted with chairs. Inside the ten-square-metre room, robust DIY panels have been screwed to the walls to hold the artworks. In winter the cold makes it impossible to display unframed photographs, so the space is used for sealed prints instead. The shelter’s original design remains: no door, three windows and a lectern for the guest book.

Visitors find a single room where small exhibitions change several times a year. The outside shed serves as a simple gallery for the vernissage gatherings. The village lies in a quiet stretch of the Eifel, surrounded by open fields and gentle hills. The wArtehalle keeps the memory of its past as a bus stop while showing contemporary art in a space built for waiting.