This volcano museum in western Hungary features walls of dark concrete and Corten steel designed by Budapest studio Foldes Architects to reference the colours of volcanic rock and lava (+ slideshow).
Located on a flat plain between the city of Celldomolk and a former volcano, the Kemenes Volcanopark Visitor Centre tells the history of the surrounding region, which five million years ago was home to many volcanoes.
Foldes Architects won a competition to design the museum, using materials and forms that subtly reference the shapes and colours of volcanoes.
“Instead of the straight translation of the brief, such as creating a volcano-shaped museum building, we wanted to capture the true substance of the location,” said architect Laszlo Foldes.
“The raw materials, the homogeneous grey of the concrete, the lava-inspired colour of the Corten steel and the flue-like arrangement of the space deliver the spirit and essence of a volcano,” he added.
Corten steel boxes puncture the rectilinear volume of the five-storey building, forming self-contained screening rooms and exhibition spaces that project out towards the landscape.
The entrance leads into a full-height atrium. A small skylight five storeys above lets in a beam of light and is intended to recreate the feeling of being inside a volcano.
Concrete walls are left exposed inside the building, while steel staircases ascend to exhibition spaces on all four upper floors.
Here’s some more information from Foldes Architects:
Volcano Visitor Centre opened in Hungary, designed by Foldes Architects
Though Hungary, located in Central Eastern Europe, is not rich in active volcanos, a large expanse of the country used to be volcanic some 5 million years ago. However, this does help ensure good quality soil for high level wine production, one of Hungary’s largest export products.
The iconic Kemenes Volcanopark Visitor Centre lays 200 km west of the capital Budapest, and has been realised following a national architectural contest announced in 2009 by the Celldomolk City Council, when Foldes Architects celebrated their winning entry from the competing 44 projects. The chosen plot for the centre highlighted a flat area between the city of Celldomolk and the 5 million year old Sag Hill, a former volcano.
“Instead of the straight translation of the brief, such as creating a volcano-shaped museum building, we wanted to capture the true substance of the location. According to our concept, the raw materials, the homogeneous grey of the concrete, the lava-inspired colour of the Corten steel, and the flue-like arrangement of the space, deliver the spirit and essence of a volcano.” – Laszlo Foldes, chief designer of Foldes Architects.
Upon entering the vast interior of the building, the visitor meets two engaging attractions. At first sight the vertically open space captures the eye. Five floors above, a small window lets in a beam of light offering the ‘eruption’ point on the flat roof. On the opposite side, the industrial materials of the facade appear consistent with the interior: naked concrete walls, dark grey resin flooring, steel staircase and corridor, and the Corten steel cubes also visible from the outside. The varied height and location of bridges link the different sizes and positions of the Corten boxes. These offer a range of functions, from screening rooms to interactive installations area, and present the fascinating history and typology of volcanos. To create a more refined interior, the exhibition texts are situated directly on the wall without any supporting board.
If you ever wanted to imagine walking through a cubist painting, this building is a great example of how it might feel to wander into Picasso’s Guernica. While passing below the red cubes, grey walls and bridges of the building, you have a real opportunity to comprehend the transience and vulnerability of human existence bracketed by such a formidable force of nature.
Project name: Kemenes Volcanopark Visitor Center Location: Celldomolk, Vas County, Hungary Program: Specific museum building to represent the volcanic history of the territory Type: competition commission
Area/Size: 965 sqm Cost: 1.238.000.EUR Client: Celldomolk City Council Project by: Foldes Architects
This maritime museum in the Netherlands by Dutch studio Mecanoo features reclaimed wooden cladding and a zig-zagging roof that reference the gabled houses of the surrounding hamlet (+ slideshow).
Photograph by Mecanoo
Mecanoo completed the Kaap Skil, Maritime and Beachcombers Museum in Oudeschild, on the island of Texel. The angular roof profile was designed to match the rhythms of a group of harbour-side buildings, while the louvred wooden facade relates to the driftwood used by locals to build their homes.
Sheets of recycled hardwood were sawn into strips to create the louvres, which allow daylight to filter through to a ground-floor cafe and a first-floor gallery.
“The wooden slats used in the facades come from tropical hardwood piling from the North Holland Canal,” said the architects. “The un-sawed edges have been deliberately placed on the visible side of the facade. After forty years of residence under water the white, grey, rust-red, purple and brown colours are beautifully weathered.”
The large upper gallery is dedicated to underwater archaeology. There’s also a second exhibition space in the basement to present the history of Reede van Texel – a historic offshore anchorage used by the fleet of the Dutch East India Company.
“The entrance and the museum cafe form a natural frontier between the world of the Reede van Texel in the basement and that of the underwater archaeology on the first floor,” explained the architects.
Photography is by Christian Richters, apart from where otherwise stated.
Here’s some more information from Mecanoo:
Kaap Skil, Maritime and Beachcombers Museum, Texel, the Netherlands
Tourist Attraction
The island of Texel is situated in the Waddenzee and is the largest of the Dutch Wadden Islands. Every year a million or so tourists visit the island, which is only accessible by plane, boat or ferry. Few however will be familiar with the glorious history of Texel and its links with the Dutch East India Company. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Company’s fleet used the anchorage of Texel as its departure point for expeditions to the Far East. The ships waited there for a favourable wind before weighing anchor and sailing off to the ‘Orient’. While they waited, maintenance work and small repairs were carried out, victuals and water were brought on board and family could see their loved ones one last time.
Many painters visited the ‘Reede van Texel’ (the offshore anchorage of Texel) to depict on canvas the fleet of the Dutch Republic. In the new entrance building of the maritime and beachcombers museum, Kaap Skil, in the hamlet of Oudeschild, the public is taken back in time to the Dutch Golden Age. The showpiece of the museum is an eighteen-metre long, four-metre deep model of the Reede van Texel, displaying in great detail the impressive spectacle of the dozens of ships anchored off the coast of the Wadden Island.
Photograph by Mecanoo
Typical gable roofs
The museum is designed with four playfully linked gabled roofs which are a play on the rhythm of the surrounding rooftops which, seen from the sea, resemble waves rising out above the dyke.
Photograph by Mecanoo
‘The sea takes away and the sea provides’ – this is a saying that the people of Texel know so well. For hundreds of years they have made grateful use of driftwood from stranded ships or wrecks to build their houses and barns. The wooden façade of Kaap Skil is a good example of this time-hallowed tradition of recycling. The vertical wooden boards are made of sawn hardwood sheet-piling from the North Holland Canal and have been given a new life just like the objects in the museum collection.
From within, the glass facade in front of the wooden boards allows an inviting view of the outdoor museum terrain and of the famous North Holland skies to visitors of the museum café. Inside the building the boards cast a linear pattern of daylight and shadow creating an atmosphere infused with light and shelter.
Daylight and artificial light
The entrance and the museum café form a natural frontier between the world of the Reede van Texel in the basement and that of the underwater archaeology on the first floor. The contrast between the two worlds is reinforced by the different experiences of light and space. In the basement visitors are drawn around the exhibition by projections and animations, creating an intimate space that harbours a sense of mystery. On the first floor the North Holland sky floods the objects on display with light. The movable showcases of robust steel frames and glass create a transparent effect so that the objects in the collection seem to float within the space. Under the high gabled roofs the visitor gets a generous sense of being able to survey the sizable collection, the museum grounds and the village of Oudeschild at a glance.
Site plan
Client: Maritiem & Jutters Museum, Oudeschild Architect: Mecanoo architecten, bv Museum design: Kossmann.dejong, Amsterdam Project management: ABC Management Groep, Assen Builders: Pieters Bouwtechniek, Utrecht Installations consultant: Peter Prins, Woerden Contractors: Bouwcombinatie De Geus & Duin Bouwbedrijf, Broek op Langedijk Installations: ITBB, Heerenveen Sawmills for wooden cladding of façades: Pieter Dros, Texel
New York studio Asymptote has designed a faceted performing arts centre for South Korea that references the curved rooftops of ancient Buddhist temples and pavilions (+ slideshow).
Proposed for a site that connects the city of Sejong with a park and river, the Sejong Center for Performing Arts is designed by Asymptote as an asymmetric building accommodating a grand auditorium, a small theatre and a cinema.
The architects combined a series of flat and curved surfaces to generate the multi-faceted form of the building, intended to relate to various Korean architectural styles.
“By confronting different aspects of the site the architecture sets out to capture the city’s vitality and history, by alluding tectonically to the spirit and flavours of local Korean architectural traditions,” said the architects. “The curved and mathematically precise roofs of nearby pavilions and temples are quoted here and set against the stoic solidity of traditional monumental buildings.”
Some of the exterior walls will integrate outdoor cinema screens, while a glass facade will function as a huge shop window to present some of the theatrical activities taking place inside.
Entrances are to be positioned on the east and west elevations, creating a lobby that cuts through the centre of the structure. This axis will lead directly to cafes, ticket desks and waiting areas.
Asymptote’s design for a new centre of performing arts for the city of Sejong in South Korea celebrates the city’s emergence and growth as a place of stature and culture. The proposal calls for an architecture centred around notions of contemporary urbanism as expressed through a distinctive and unique envelope and object-bulling perched on an open site that connects the city, a park and nearby waterway. By confronting different aspects of the site the architecture sets out to capture the city’s vitality and history by alluding tectonically to the spirit and flavours of local Korean architectural traditions. The curved and mathematically precise roofs of nearby pavilions and temples are quoted here and set against the stoic solidity of traditional monumental buildings also part of the surroundings.
The new Sejong arts centre is designed to seamlessly connect to the city fabric where the two main entrances to the building are placed along an east-west axis that cuts diagonally across the site. As this axis passes through the building’s interior it connects the upper foyer of the arts centre with the city centre to the west and the riverside park and museum district to the east. The treatment of the main urban facade as a large multi-story glass expanse creates a theatrical display and show window into the world of performance and theatre. With its intricate patterns of louvres the facade performs environmentally as well as aesthetically providing a compelling and dramatic backdrop to the exterior public space that it overlooks.
The interiors are designed to make for a theatrical setting for the audiences gathering and using the buildings spaces. Two theatres and nested into the buildings interior as well as cafes, reception and waiting areas cinemas and other functions. The notion of bundling and ‘packing’ the buildings function into a singular experience and form allows for both utility and a powerful and ‘episodic’ interiority and experience. The New Sejong Performing Art Center is a centrepiece for the city, a gathering place of history, contemporary culture, performance and spectacle.
3D sectional diagram
Date: 2013 Size: 15,000 sqm Location: Sejong, South Korea Architect: Asymptote Architecture Design Partners: Hani Rashid, Lise Anne Couture Project Director: John Guida Design Team: Danny Abalos, Bika Rebek, Du Ho Choi, Hong Min Kim, Project Team” Matthew Slattery, Valentina Soana, Mu Jung Kang, Client: Multifunctional Administrative City Construction Agency (MACCA) Local Architect: EGA Seoul Structural Engineer: Knippers Helbig Stuttgart- New York Environmental Design: Transsolar Inc. New York
The MuSe Museum by Italian architect Renzo Piano has opened to the public in Trento, Italy, and features angled profiles that echo the shapes of the nearby Dolomites mountains (+ slideshow).
Photograph by Stefano Goldberg
The science and technology museum forms part of a wider regeneration by Renzo Piano Building Workshop of Trento’s Le Albere district, a riverside site that formerly housed a Michelin tyre factory. The museum is positioned at the northern boundary of the new neighbourhood, beyond housing, offices, a hotel and a new public park.
Photograph by Stefano Goldberg
Comprising a mixture of steel and glass panels, the dynamic roofline juts up and down between three- and six-storey heights to create a rhythm with the mountains beyond, as well as to divide the building into four sections.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
“The idea of the roofs was important because we are in a deep valley, and the area is really visible from above,” project architect Danilo Vespier told Disengo magazine. “You just need to drive half an hour into the mountains and you can look down on the area as if it was an architectural model.”
Photograph by Alessandra Gadotti
The two central sections accommodate exhibitions dedicated to natural history, from mountains to glaciers. These galleries centre around a full-height atrium where taxidermied animals and skeletons are suspended below a large glass ceiling.
Photograph by Enrico Cano
A huge glass-fronted lobby provides an entrance to the museum, leading visitors to the top of the building so that they make their way down through the exhibits. To its east, an adjoining block contains administration and research departments.
Photograph by Stefano Goldberg
The smallest section of the building is positioned on the western side and functions as a greenhouse for cultivating tropical plants, which are irrigated using rainwater collected from the rooftops.
Photograph by Enrico Cano
The entire building is built over a pool of water that emerges around some of the edges. A series of canals feed into the pool from the streets of the new masterplan, while the Adige river runs along the southern boundary of the site.
Here are some extra details from Renzo Piano Building Workshop:
The Ex-Michelin Area – The “Le Albere” District, Trento
Overview
The area extends from the railway line and Palazzo delle Albere, on Via Monte Baldo, up to the left bank of the River Adige.
This area has an extremely high potential, but is constrained between two physical and psychological barriers to the east and west: the railway, separating the area from the town’s nearby historical centre, and Via Sanseverino, which acts as an urban boundary between the area itself and the river’s natural environment.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
The project is mainly aimed at reintegrating the existing urban landscape and exploiting the site’s relationship with the river environment by making better use of its natural resources.
Photograph by Paolo Pelanda
The project’s secondary goal is to urbanise these localities, which for social and cultural reasons have become marginalised with respect to the rest of the city, by including a range of different structures (such as residences, office buildings, shops, cultural venues, conference centres and recreational areas) and by concentrating their volumes within just one sector of the area in order to free up enough space for a large park.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
This new district is primarily characterised by its innovative urban fabric, which features a specific dimensional hierarchy of roads, pathways, squares and open spaces.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
Via Sanseverino and Via Monte Baldo provide Road access to the area. This new urban fabric is also relatively traffic-free. It is restricted to residents, taxis and public transport, and offers numerous pedestrian walkways that wind into the courtyards of certain building complexes.
The new district therefore offers an atmosphere of meeting places, open spaces, workplaces and trade areas, where individuals can easily get around on foot and explore the large number of aggregation points within this widely varied environment.
Photograph by Shunji Ishida
The main east-west streets, which traverse the railway embankment in order to unite the new road scheme with that of the existing urban fabric, are lined along their entire length by two rows of trees, and lead directly into the park area on the shores of the River Adige, where cultural and recreational centers are expected to arise.
In accordance with the plans that have already been established by the City Council, it will be necessary to construct new railway underpasses for vehicles and pedestrians, to render this connection both physically and visually feasible.
Photograph by Enrico Cano
The construction volumes have even been calculated based upon an examination and careful analysis of the City of Trento’s historic centre, as well as the way in which the different activities will occupy the urban spaces themselves and the proportions between the width of the streets and the heights of the surrounding buildings.
Photograph by Enrico Cano
In fact, due to the height, the cadence and dimensional scale of the buildings themselves, which are comparable to those of the city’s historic centre and the existing industrial structures, the project favours a horizontal interpretation of the relationship between the new buildings and the open spaces foreseen by the design.
The entire new district will feature a number of 4 to 5 storey buildings, with an in-line or courtyard layout, along with the presence of two “special objects”, serving as aggregation points at all hours of the day, for both the complex’s residents and the rest of the city.
The new Trento science museum is located in the northern portion of the new district foreseen for the Ex-Michelin area, and is housed is what is known as the A-block, situated at the end of the main pedestrian route that connects the area’s higher-end activities with the functions of the greatest public interest. It is also located in close proximity to the new public park and Palazzo delle Albere, with which it will boast a respectful and productive relationship.
The idea was based on establishing a perfect compromise between the need for flexibility and the desire for a precise and consistent response to the scientific content of the cultural project itself. The museum’s magnificent exhibition themes can even be recognised in the form and volumes of the structure itself, all while maintaining the flexible layout typical of a more modern museum.
In addition to the volumetric interpretation of the museum’s scientific contents, the architectural design has also been dictated by the museum’s relationship with its surrounding environment: or rather the new district, including the park, the river and Palazzo delle Albere. Thus, all these inputs have physically taken shape thanks to the clearer definition of the specific architectural elements that make up the rest of the district itself, above all in terms of its tertiary, residential and commercial functions.
The building is made up of a sequence of spaces and volumes (solids and voids) resting (or seemingly floating) upon a large body of water, thus multiplying the effects andvibrations of light and shade. The entire structure is held together at the top by its large roof layers, which are in complete harmony with its forms, thus rendering them recognisable even from the outside.
Starting from the east, the first structure houses functions which are not available to the public, such as administrative and research offices, scientific laboratories and ancillary spaces for on-site staff. Next, we find the lobby. It is aligned with the main axis of the district and traverses the entire depth of the building towards the north, overlooking the park area outside Palazzo delle Albere.
The scientific themes of the mountain and the glacier are subsequently dealt with through a series of exhibition spaces, which gradually rise up from the basement level and nearly “break through” the roof, thus creating an observation point immersed within the environment, from which a true “simulation” of the real experience can be enjoyed. This experience is highlighted by ample exhibition spaces on two or three levels, with ceilings high enough to welcome extremely large sets and backdrops.
The building’s shape and/or “rain forest” function also serves to define is interior space and functionality. In fact, the building represents a large tropical greenhouse which, during certain periods of the year, is even capable of establishing a functional relationship with the specific exhibition stands (even outdoors), in which water, lighting and greenery often play a key role in defining the visitor’s natural surroundings.
The educational and laboratory services for the public are offered in a series of aboveground structures located alongside the exhibition areas, thus promoting interactive experiences for each individual subject matter.
The FRAC (Fond Regional D’art Contemporain) Marseille was designed by Kengo Kuma and Associates as a local art centre for the Provence Alpes Cotes d’Azur (PACA) region of France and it joins buildings by Boeri Studio and Rudy Ricciotti in the city’s harbour-side district.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
Hundreds of opaque glass rectangles create a chequerboard of solid and void across the glazed exterior of the six-storey-high building and are arranged at opposing angles to create a variation between light and shadow.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
“By this treatment, the building is given openness and transparency that are hard to gain from a conventional glass box,” said the architects.
Photograph by Roland Halbe
This uniform facade is punctured in just two places. The first opening is for a street-level window, while the second is an upper-level terrace that can be used for exhibitions, events or meetings.
“What we wanted was not a closed gallery but an elevated street that could work as an exhibition space and a workshop,” added the architects. “In this way inside and outside can be effectively linked, and this is what FRAC has aimed for since its inception.”
Photograph by Nicolas Waltefaugle
The building occupies a triangular site alongside Rue Vincent Leblanc. The larger southern section of the building accommodates the exhibition galleries, a research centre and offices, while the taller northern end contains an auditorium and children’s workshop.
The project description below is from Kengo Kuma and Associates:
Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain Marseille, France 2007-2013
The project of the contemporary art centre (FRAC) for the region Provence Alpes Cotes d’Azur (PACA) is the 3D version of the “museum without walls” invented by André Malraux, famous French writer and politician. It is a museum without a museum, a living and moving place, where the art pieces are in a constant movement and join the logic of diffusion and interaction with the visitors.
Axonometric diagram
KKAA thought the FRAC as a signal in the city, which allows a better visibility to contemporary art.
Site plan
The building stands up as a landmark which identity is clearly asserted.
It is composed with two recognisable parts: » The main body along the street Vincent Leblanc contains the exhibition spaces and documentation centre » A small tower with auditorium and children’s workshop, offers an upper terrace on the main boulevard.
These two clearly identified entities are connected between them by a set of footbridges and are unified by the envelope made by a glass skin, composed with panels with changing opacity.
The building explores the theme of the windows and openings on different scales. KKAA wishes to create a particular space of creation and life, which action and effect is bounded to the entire city, as well as the surrounding district and neighbourhood (cafe-terrace…).
Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura has completed a cultural centre in Viana do Castelo, Portugal, which is designed to look more like a machine than a building (+ slideshow).
Positioned alongside a library by Álvaro Siza and a leisure centre by Fernando Tavora, Eduardo Souto de Moura’s three-storey building is the final addition to a stretch of land between the Limia River and a new tree-lined public square.
Huge aluminium pipes and services clad the upper walls of the building, intended to reference the nautical aesthetic of the Navio Hospital Gil Eannes, a 1950s ship that is anchored nearby and used as a museum. Meanwhile, the recessed ground-floor elevations are glazed to allow views through to the river.
The plan of the building centres around a large multipurpose hall that can be used for sports, music performances, talks and other events.
This space is located at basement level, but is surrounded by wooden bleachers that lead up to the entrances and viewing corridors on the ground floor. Additional stairs and lifts lead up to administrative areas on the first floor.
The completion of the building marks the end of a five-year construction period. The two original constructors suffered bankruptcy and funding had to be subsidised by the local authority.
The building is implanted in the zone foreseen in the plan, aligned in the south side with one of the buildings projected by architect Fernando Távora.
In front of the north elevation it is foreseen an arborised square with alleys that mark the entries of the Pavilion. In this square will exist a slope that will make the access to level -1.
Formally the building is defined by a table where an aluminium box and every necessary equipments to the function of the different activities promoted in its interior will be placed. The whole image intends to be associated with the naval architecture, existing a relation with the image of the “Gil Eanes” ship.
The multipurpose pavilion will be a space directed to cultural and sport events. The main accesses will be situated in the north and south extremities. The service entrances will be made in the other elevations.
Its interior will be ample and permeable, existing the possibility of viewing the sea from the entrance floor. It is pretended that its transparency will be able to make it as lighter as possible in relation to the other buildings.
Author: Eduardo Souto de Moura Locality: Viana do Castelo Client: City Hall of Viana do Castelo Collaborators: Diogo Guimarães, Ricardo Rosa Santos, João Queiróz e Lima, Jana Scheibner, Luis Peixoto, Manuel Vasconcelos, Tiago Coelho Structural consultants: G.O.P. Electrical consultants: G.O.P. Mechanical consultants: G.O.P.
Here are the first photographs of Zaha Hadid’s almost-completed Heydar Aliyev Centre, an undulating cultural centre in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Expected to open in September, the 57,000 square-metre building is designed by Zaha Hadid Architects as a fluid volume that folds up from the landscape to form a single continuous surface.
Front elevation perspective render
Glazed openings between folds will offer entrances, leading into the library, museum and conference centre contained inside.
A cantilevered exhibition floor and an underwater conference suite feature at this archive and research centre, designed by Italian office Boeri Studio and one of several new buildings on Marseille’s waterfront (photographs by Edmund Sumner + slideshow).
The building sits at the water’s edge and was designed by Stefano Boeri as “a place of thought and research that physically embraces the sea”.
“I have always been obsessed with harbour architecture,” says Boeri, describing his interest in naval stations, silos, observation towers and dry docks. “Villa Méditerranée is a construction that combines the characteristics of civic architecture with those of harbour infrastructure and off-shore platforms.”
The architect used a combination of reinforced concrete and steel to create the angular structure of the building, then added glazing across the front and rear elevations to allow views right through.
Porthole windows face out into the sea from the conference centre, which occupies an entire floor below ground level, while the third-floor exhibition gallery is contained within a 36-metre cantilever that frames and shelters a waterfront piazza.
A triple-height entrance hall connects the two main floors. Windows are dotted randomly across its facade, reappearing as skylights and transparent floor panels elsewhere around the exterior.
Villa Méditerranée, Centre International pour le dialogue et les échanges en Méditerranée, Marseille, France
Villa Méditerranée, Centre International pour le dialogue et les échanges en Méditerranée is a circa 9.000 square metre multipurpose building, overlooking the Port of Marseille’s docks, destined to house research activities and documentation spaces on the Mediterranean.
The sea is the main unifying element of the Mediterranean world, sailed by the innumerable travels, migrations and trade; it enhances the meeting and the exchange of the communities that live in its coast.
The sea is the central element of the project: the water square enclosed in the building’s interior is the new public space representing the institution.
It is not simply a basin with ornamental intentions, but rather the union, the means of contact that orients, animates, and organises the building as a whole.
The new Villa Méditerranée, Centre International pour le dialogue et les échanges en Méditerranée is articulated between earth and sea.
The water of the Gulf of Marseilles enters between the building’s two horizontal planes (that of the conference hall and exhibition centre) creating a water square capable of harbouring fishing boats, sail boats or simply serving as a swimming pool and moorings for small pleasure boats.
The building has been thought as a place in dialogue with the surrounded landscape (earth, city, sea…) revealing the site’s values and opening up to the Mediterranean.
A cantilever of 36m is suspended at 14m from the sea level hosting an exhibition area of ca. 1500 sqm, it is enlighten by side windows, roof-lights and walkable glasses in the floor.
A conference centre of 2500 smq is located underwater; here the contact with the sea is possible through portholes. A big vertical entrance hall links together the main spaces and other smaller rooms which host offices, restaurant and other services.
The new construction combines an apparent simplicity with a real richness of spaces, paths and functions. The patio is a fundamental element of the mediterranean architecture and it has been chosen as the central element in the design process. Its ability to create at the same time an interior space and a filter towards the exterior is the key point to read and dialogue with the esplanade j4 and with the entire port. The result is a generous place, flexible and multifunctional, capable to host the unexpected.
Architecture: Boeri Studio (Stefano Boeri, Gianandrea Barreca, Giovanni La Varra) Ivan di Pol, Jean Pierre Manfredi, Alain Goetschy, AR&C; Design Team: Mario Bastianelli (Project Leader), Davor Popovic (project leader building phase), Marco Brega (project leader competition phase) Collaborators: Alessandro Agosti, Marco Bernardini, Daniele Barillari, Fabio Continanza, Massimo Cutini, Angela Parrozzani
Japanese firm Kengo Kuma and Associates has completed an art and culture centre with a chequered timber facade on the banks of the Doubs river in Besançon, France (+ slideshow).
Entitled Cité des Arts, the centre comprises the Besançon Art Centre, which includes a gallery for regional collections and an art college, and the Cité de la Musique, a music school with its own auditorium.
Kengo Kuma and Associates won a competition to design the centre with plans for a timber-clad complex united beneath a single roof. This roof bridges the gap between a pair of three-storey buildings, creating a sheltered terrace in the space between.
“We did not want to propose a simple box,” say the architects. “By covering the gorgeous riverside with one generous roof, we aimed to give a unity to a site characterised by heterogeneous existing elements, and to create a special space under the roof, a ‘shade of trees’ space where the wind from the river could blow and pass through.”
Steel and glass panels are interspersed between the chequerboard of timber that blankets the exterior, creating different transparencies to various spaces inside the two buildings. Reception spaces are filled with natural light, while classrooms and exhibition galleries are made more opaque.
“A beautiful shade may pass through this mosaic and enfold the people on the riverside,” say the architects.
The music school wraps around a small courtyard garden filled with mossy plants and low trees, while the art centre takes in a converted 1930s warehouse for use as an extra gallery.
Solar panels and sedum roof panels help to improve the sustainability of the centre. The structure is also elevated above ground level to decrease the risks of flooding.
Photography is by Stephan Girard, apart from where otherwise indicated.
Here’s a project description from the architects:
Cité des Arts
The 7th July of 2008, the city of Besancon has been recognised as UNESCO world heritage for his outstanding fortification system erected by Vauban during the XVII century. The site of the future art and culture centre reflects the historical richness of the city: located in-between the bastions called Rivotte and Bregille, remarkable vestige of a prestigious history, the existing building in bricks attest of the industrial river traffic and activity of the region. Besancon is well known for being precursory in the green development in France. The site is inscribes in a generous natural environment in-between hill planted of forest, over hanged by the Citadelle and close to the riverside of the Doubs.
Concept
This project is the result of the union between history and architecture, water and light, city and nature.
We wish that the Besancon Art and Culture Centre strikes a chord with the environment by the fusion of the different scale of reading, from the details to the entire project, by blurring the limit between interior and exterior, to create a building able to enter in resonance with its environment: the hills, the river and the city of Besancon.
The roof creates the link between the building and its environment and makes the project blatant. Semi-transparent, the roof symbolises the fusion between built and not-built and act as camouflage when people discover it from the Citadelle which is height overlooking. It is an invitation to the citizen to gather below his protection. It symbolised the encounter between the city and the nature, the citizen and the riverbank, the public and the culture.
The site brings with itself both its own history and the history of the city. The riverbank always has been either a protection or a barrier. The project is a continuity of this history, its longitudinal geometry is following the orientation given by Vauban, the warehouse, old storage of wood, is kept and participate in the richness of the building. The Besancon Art and Culture Centre perpetuate the notion of protection, but can be read as well as a monumental gate between the city and the river, outstanding object and symbol of the unification of the city and his river.
It is a landmark, recognisable by a sober design and the quality of his materiality. We wish to reinforce the genius loci of the site through a strong and clearly identifiable building, but still respecting the relationship with the existing bastion, the river and the city.
Organisation Principle
Unified below the large roof, the two functions are identifiable by subtle differences in the patterns of the façade composed by wood panels and steel panels. The pattern dimensions are for the FRAC: 5000 X 2500 Horizontal while for the CRR 1625 X half floor height vertically.
The FRAC is partially located in the old brick warehouse building. After taking out two of the existing slabs, the void created is containing the main exhibition room. The large lobby of the FRAC is as much as possible transparent, open to both “art passage” and city side. The natural top light is diffused thanks to the random positioned glass panels of the roof, in order to achieve to communicate the feeling of being below a canopy of tree, where the light gently come through leaves down to the ground. The CRR is more an introverted space, except for his lobby which is 14 m height and largely transparent. Both lobby of FRAC and CRR are connected by the roof, creating a semi-outdoor space, the “art passage”, which is flooded of natural light through the semi-transparent roof. This passage, a large void, is structuring the overall buildings: it acts simultaneously as a gate and a shelter; it emphasises the particularity of this project witch gathering two different functions.
The roof
The roof is the emblematic and unifying element of the project. Composed in a random way with different element such as glass, solar panel, vegetation and metal panels with different color finish, the natural light vibrates on its surface, depending of the absorption and reflection of the different elements composing it. It creates a pixelised layer where the apparent aleatory position of the “pixels” define a unique image, abstract and confounded with the environment hue. The transparency is partially defined by the necessity of the program below: opaque on top of the rooms such as classroom, administration, or exhibition room. It gets more transparent when it is on top of the lobby or when it is covering the outdoor spaces.
Suspended by a wood framework, this fifth façade made of variation of transparency and opacity represent a unique and innovative design, a thin pixelised layer floating on top of the Doubs river and becoming at night a landmark reinforcing the entrance of the city. The only element emerging from the roof is the old warehouse converted in exhibition gallery, reminding the industrial period of the site.
The landscape design takes part in the pedestrian path along the river: it extend and connect the existing promenade. The main constrain of the site is the flood risk. We have reinforced the embankment and built on top of that dike. This is the reason why the building is installed on top of a pedestal. This pedestal can be physically experimented walking below the “art passage” semi-outdoor space, overhanging the street and connected to the river by a large stair.
The CRR is organised around a garden, called “harmony garden”, a wet garden combining moss and low trees. In continuity with the “art passage”, along the FRAC, a water pond planted with filtering rush is creating the soft transition between the city and the building. Partially covered by the semi-transparent roof, the shadow and light variations interweaves with the reflections on the reflection pond.
Wood, glass, or metal meshes are combined with subtleties in order to generate a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere. The wood frameworks supporting the roofing appear in the lobbies, terraces and in the last floors, which intensify the presence of the roof. The views to the exterior are precisely framed either to the water pond, the river, the double or triple height spaces manage to offer different space experiences.
This place which always has been perceived as a physical barrier for the citizens (either fortification or industrial area) we propose to generate an open and welcoming cultural centre, a gate and a roof between the river and the city, in harmony with the environment.
Project Credits:
Architects: Kengo Kuma, Paris and Tokyo Project team: Sarah Markert, Elise Fauquembergue, Jun Shibata, Yuki Ikeguchi
Architect associate: Archidev, Cachan, France Structure and MEP engineer: Egis, Strasbourg, France Landscaper: L’Anton, Arcueil, France Acoustic engineer: Lamoureux, Paris, France Scenographer: Changement à Vu, Paris, France Quantity surveyor: Cabinet Cholley, Besançon, France Sustainable engineer: Alto, Lyon, France Site Area: 20 603 sqm Built area: 11 389 sqm Client: Communauté d’agglomération, Franche-Comté, Ville de Besançon, Budget: 26 900 000 Euros
Architecture studio Spaceworkers has inserted a house-shaped cultural centre inside a nineteenth-century schoolhouse in Parades, northern Portugal.
The Centro Interpretação functions as an information centre for the Rota do Românico, a series of tourist trails dedicated to the Romanesque architecture and monuments in the valleys that surround the town, and also hosts exhibitions and educational activities.
To respect the architecture of the existing building, which had formerly been used as the school’s gym, Spaceworkers added two monolithic black volumes, both with gabled profiles that follow the angles of the roof.
“We wanted to preserve the identity of the place with our intervention,” architect Rui Dinis told Dezeen. “We didn’t want to lose the shape of the ceiling, so we chose to add a kind of replicating structure.”
The largest of the two volumes houses an informal auditorium filled with small black stools, while the second contains an information desk with a storeroom and toilet tucked behind. The floor between the structures is also painted black to create the impression of a continuous entity.
Apart from a concrete arch that curves around the centre of the space, the rest of the interior is painted white, creating a visible contrast between old and new.
“The white creates the atmosphere, the black gives some form and the activities of the space will bring the other colours,” explained Dinis.
Preserving the identity of the location and characteristics of the building concerned was for us the slogan for the intervention.
The proposed space appears as a “house inside the house”. A “solid” volume landed within the existing space that reacts to the geometry of the shape.
In this amount is subtracted from the central area thus resulting in a kind of square separating the different functions of the space. On the one hand, a monolithic volume with a central door is “auditorium” on the other, a volume cut is receiving and store.
Project: public building Year: 2012 Size: 100m2
Address: Paredes Client: Rota do Românico Author: spaceworkers®
Team: Principal architects: Henrique Marques, Rui Dinis Architects: Rui Rodrigues, Sérgio Rocha, Rui Miguel
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
