Museum Unterlinden 

The architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron extended the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, France, with a new wing featuring a façade of broken bricks.

The Unterlinden Museum is housed in a former 13th century Dominican convent. Outside Paris, Unterlinden is one of the most visited French art museums.

For the brick façade, the decision was made in favour of the Trass masonry mortar from tubag. There were great demands to be met here, as the mortar had to match the strength and expansion behaviour of the bricks exactly due to the strong temperature fluctuations, in order to avoid cracks. A special trass masonry mortar was developed for this purpose, which is also suitable for joint design. For this reason, the masonry bricks no longer had to be specially grouted. Instead, the bricklayers simply smoothed the joints with a very narrow spatula directly after setting the bricks.