Hasta La Ideas

ADJKM Arquitectos have won a competition to build a music complex in Caracas, Venezuela, with this design covered in a veil of vertical louvres. 

Designed as part of the Símon Bolívar International Complex for Social Action through Music, the Caracas Symphony will consist of two units, a music conservatory and two concert halls, with a horizontal gap in the middle of the building separating the two parts.

The concert halls will be located in the upper section of the complex, with its structure overhanging the lower part.

Below this will be the music conservatory, housing classrooms and rehearsal rooms.

Accommodation for musicians, function rooms, a restaurant and offices will be located in the rest of the building.

Construction is due to begin this year and will be completed by 2016.

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The following information is from the architects:

FIRST PRIZE. Project in progress – Caracas, Venezuela 2010-2016
Public competition for the preliminary design of the Simon Bolivar International Complex for Social Action through Music (CIASMSB) and its surrounding urban area.

Program:
3 modular concert halls of 1700, 1300 and 500 seats. One of which is adjustable up to receive 400 musicians. Music conservatory: Rehearsal rooms, classrooms. Restaurant and cafeteria, musicians’ dorms, administrative offices, outdoor amphitheaters. Parking.

The competition was organized by The FESNOJIV, a government-funded organization aimed at systematizing music education and promoting the collective practice of music through symphony orchestras and chorus as a means of social organization and communitarian development, and the CAF (Andean Development Corporation) a financial institution that supports sustainable development and regional integration in Latin America.

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The proposals were evaluated by an international jury composed of José Antonio Abreu, director of the FESNOJIV, Yasuhisa Toyota, the Japanese acoustician, Iñaki Abalos, Spanish architect, Anita de la Rosa, landscape architect, Lorenzo González Casas, urban planner architect, Eduardo Guzmán, representing the Libertador Town Hall and Omar Seijas, vice-president of the Colegio de Arquitectos de Venezuela. Substitute members of the jury were: Pedro Franco, architect and Paola Posani, representing the Libertador Town Hall.

PROJECT
The FESNOJIV is internationally recognized as a unique and distinguished program based on the social characteristics of musical training, thus contributing to the development of potential future for the children of Venezuela and Latin America. By promoting cultural development, the Foundation raises the hope of social and professional integration.

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The competition, jointly organized by CAF and FESNOJIV, consists in the design of the International Complex for Social Action through Music Simón Bolívar. This symphonic complex will complement the existing complex located in the Amador Bendayán Boulevard, along the northern boundary of Los Caobos Park, in the cultural center of Caracas.

The CIASMSB consists of two units: a music conservatory and the concert halls. The conservatory includes classrooms, large rehearsal rooms and individual rehearsal cubicles. The modular concert halls consist of a first hall of 1700 seats (200 singers) and another hall of 1300 seats (400 singers). A third room with 500 seats shares functions between concerts and rehearsals. The remaining program includes administration, musicians’ residencies, restaurant and cafeteria, media center, and parking areas. The total constructed area is over 36000m 2.

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The objective is to create an urban space as a social bond in a dense cultural program. This fragment gap divides the building into two units by means of a horizontal fracture that opens the view on the Los Caobos Park and incorporates the notion of landscape to the project. It is a meeting place for visitors and users. This space connects the music conservatory, a compact block anchored to the ground, and the concert hall, a light block suspended as a precious levitated object over the park.

The silhouette takes the poetic symbolism of the tree: the musical knowledge starts at the root of the project and the creative genesis arises at the top through the artistic talent of musicians.

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CREDITS

Surface: >36000 m2
Architecture: adjkm
Principals: Alejandro Méndez, Daniel Otero, Jean-Marc Rio, Khristian Ceballos, Mawarí Núñez.
Acoustics: Khale Acoustics.
Scenography: Ducks Scéno.
Structure: Andrés Otero — AEO Proyectos.
Concert Hall Images: Rodolphe Rodier, Gael Nys – RSI Studio.
Contributors: José Castillo, Gabriel Castro, Nicolas Delevaux, Yuan Jiang, Gilles Lefevre, Sophie Merle, Panovi Núñez, Jorge Núñez, Javier Otero, Gregoire Plasson,
Bertrand Reunaudin, Paulo Rezende.
Client: FESNOJIV (State Foundation for the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela)

See also:

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Paul Eluard Cultural Centre by OFF Architecture	Opera & Cultural Centre by Brisac Gonzalez & Space	The Cave by Gonzalo Vaíllo Martínez

Beijing architects MAD have unveiled their design for a 200m-long, icicle-shaped museum in Harbin, northeast China.

The museum, which will be dedicated to Chinese wood sculptures, is the first of a trio of cultural buildings in the city designed by MAD.

Construction work on the museum is already underway and an opera house and a cultural centre, both designed by MAD, will also be built in Harbin.

Harbin is capital of Heilongjiang Province in northeast China and is best known as home of the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, which takes place each year in January.

See more Dezeen stories about MAD.
See all our stories about museums.

Here’s some info from MAD:

MAD designs China Wood Sculpture Museum in Harbin

Beijing, January 08, 2011 – MAD today unveiled their new museum for Chinese wood sculptures in Harbin. As the main city of Northern China, Harbin is in the process of defining itself as a regional hub for the arts at a time when the historic city is rapidly expanding.

Inspired by the unique local winter landscapes, the museum is a contrast between the elegance of nature and the speed of daily life. Its 200 meter long body is shaped as a frozen fluid that reflects and explores the relation between the building and the environment.

The interior of the museum combines two different exhibitions connected by a centralized entrance which both separates the two museums while simultaneously joining them, achieving a symbiotic relationship. Skylights flood daylight into the voids adjacent to the galleries, creating optimum viewing conditions and scenic moments in and around the building.

MAD was commissioned to design three cultural building in 2009; the structure of the museum was recently completed while the design for an opera house and cultural centre is to be finished in February.

About MAD – Beijing based MAD is dedicated to innovation in architectural practice. As a leading voice in the new generation of design, MAD examines and develops unique futuristic solutions, exploring a renewed understanding of nature and advanced technology. MAD defines architecture as a man-made symbiosis, in harmony with nature, giving people the freedom to develop their own independent urban experience.

The work of MAD has been exhibited worldwide. Most recently founding Architect Ma Yansong was awarded with a RIBA International fellowship, making him the first Chinese architect to receive this prize.

MAD currently has 9 projects under construction including: the Absolute Towers near Toronto and the Erdos Museum in Inner Mongolia, the Sinosteel International Plaza, a 358M high-rise building in Tianjin, and the Urban Forest Highrise in Chong Qing.

Spanish studio Eneseis Arquitectura have inserted this glass-fronted box housing a cultural centre into a town square in Alicante, Spain.

At street level the glass façade of the El Claustro Cultural Centre faces the square, allowing views into the building.

A basement level beneath the square features a series of mobile walls allowing the size of each room to be altered.

The following information is from the architects:

EL CLAUSTRO

The “El Claustro” cultural centre is placed in the heart of the old town, in the protected enviroment of the San Nicolas con-cathedral, in the “ElClaustro” square. The old town is an strategical point for social and cultural life of the city.

Along the day, it’s one of the most turistic and gastronomic places, visited not only for its bohemian atmosphere but also for its historical value.

At night, it becames the main leisure time zone of the city. The place where every citizen of Alicante meet each other in a continuos mass of people, terraces, pubs, bars and restaurants.

The Clautro square was a deep-set urban space. Where the San Nicolas’ itself was open at the same level.

We started the Project with these premises:

Take the square at sourrounding streets’ same. This would osigenate the “old town” urban matrix, so dense and narrow. Dignify the protected block of the con-cathedral. Give back the cloister its own meaning and function.

Closed and looking into itself. Turn this place into a city center, enhancing its public life and old town vitality too, in both daily and night sides.

THE BUILDING

Our answer was a building-square at street level. A stony square, according to the sourroundings materials and weight. This stone ground breaks itself and raises to build the upper floor roof.

That makes visible the vitreous inner core, which is always sourrounded by metal sheet. Thus, the building shows his two faces, historic and technologic.

The building attached to the square is an informational interface and display, An interface that everybody can use as an office when it’s opened. And the rest of the time, a display that everyone can see and hear, trough video and sound projected into the public space.

Besides, the building completes the block, closing the cloister as it was required. The lower level, beneath the square, it’s a space for showrooms and atteliers, shaped by moving walls.

Thanks to this moving walls, it’s possible to make bigger or shrink the space, according to the needs. It also gives the chance for individual access to each space, using an ID card.

To overcome the gap between these rooms and the square, the activities can be projected on the square in realtime. That allows us to make visible the creative process, making this another tool to enhance the cultural activity. It also improves the building’s use, making the whole square join the activity

Therefore it’s a square, meaning that it’s a social place, a place for exchange and relationship. Capable to generate activity and making people feel closer. A place able to attract citizens, while able to activate it’s surroundings.

CONSTRUCTION

The whole building is organized through a system, which assumes the structure, distributes the space, the facilities (lighting, informatic, ventilation, air conditioning), hosts furniture, are the walls themselves…

This system is ready to adopt new requirements and needs. It can be easily assembled, or even disassembled, whenever it’s not needed anymore.

We re-use part of the demolition materials in our building, in order to reduce transport costs and save energy as far as possible.

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Casa Llorens by Eneseis Arquitectura	The Long Barn Studio by Nicolas Tye Architects	Cultural Centre Association by RMDM Architects