Villa Merkel, Cultural heritage monument in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany.

Villa Merkel is a villa built in 1872/73 by Stuttgart architect Otto Tafel for textile industrialist Oskar Merkel in Esslingen am Neckar. Its enclosing walls and cellar ceiling are of stamped concrete, while the upper interior walls are timber-framed. The neo-renaissance house has a north entrance portico facing the town and railway, a south bay facing the park and Neckar, and a two-storey winter garden on the west side.

The building was erected in 1873 for a textile industrialist and is considered an early example of residential construction using concrete. It was later converted into a public art gallery and has remained in that role ever since.

Since 1973 the villa has housed the Galerie der Stadt Esslingen; its first show, opened on 27 October 1974, was devoted to lithographs, woodcuts and etchings by Edvard Munch. Fifteen rooms covering about 500 m² now host changing exhibitions of international contemporary art. The adjoining Bahnwärterhaus adds four rooms for mainly young, lesser-known artists and keeps a flat for grant holders.

The villa is easy to reach on foot from the center of Esslingen, as it sits right along the Neckar River. Visiting on a weekday is generally more comfortable, since the gallery and its garden tend to be less crowded than on weekends.

A small railway guard house next to the villa also functions as an exhibition space, used mainly for works by younger or emerging artists. This secondary building is easy to overlook but adds a different context for viewing art compared to the main house.