Hasta La Ideas

The Louvre Lens, a new outpost of the Musée du Louvre by Japanese architects SANAA and New York studio Imrey Culbert, opens to the public next week in Lens, northern France (+ slideshow).

Comprising a chain of rectangular volumes, the 360-metre long-building has walls of glass and brushed aluminium that appear to be straight but actually feature subtle curves.

Above: photograph is by Hisao Suzuki

“The project avoids the strict, rectilinear shapes that would have conflicted with the subtle character of the site, as well as of free shapes that would have been overly restrictive from the perspective of the museum’s internal operations,” explain SANAA architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. “The slight inflection of the spaces is in tune with the long curved shape of the site and creates a subtle distortion of the inner areas while maintaining a graceful relationship with the artwork.”

SANAA and Imrey Culbert won a competition to design the museum back in 2006 and it is located on the site of an overgrown coal mine that had been closed down since the 1960s.

“In keeping with a desire to maintain the openness of the site and to reduce the ascendancy of this large project, the building was broken down into several spaces,” said Sejima and Nishizawa. “Through their size and layout, which follow the gradual changes in terrain elevation, the buildings achieve balance with the scale of the site and the shape of the paths and landscape features, evoking its mining history.”

Visitors enter the building through the glazed central hall, where curved glass rooms contain a bookshop, a cafe and other facilities.

Doors at opposite corners of this hall lead through to the two exhibition galleries. To the east, the 125-metre-long Grande Galerie provides the setting for a permanent collection of artworks dating back through six centuries, while to the west is a gallery for temporary exhibitions that adjoins an auditorium.

Daylight filters into the galleries though glazed panels on the roof, but rows of louvres prevent direct sunlight from entering. Meanwhile, the aluminium walls create fuzzy reflections inside the rooms.

“Context makes the content of art speak differently to each of us,” architect Tim Culbert told Dezeen. “The palette and forms of the gallery wings heighten our perceptive awareness in a subtle way, impacting how we look at the art.”

Beyond the Grande Galerie is another room with walls of glass, used for displaying art from the neighbourhood of Lens.

Above: photograph is by Hisao Suzuki

Storage areas are buried underground and can be accessed from the central hall, while two additional buildings accommodate administration rooms and a restaurant.

Above: photograph is by Hisao Suzuki

The architects collaborated with landscape architect Catherine Mosbach to surround the buildings with gardens and pathways.

SANAA is best known for designing the Rolex Learning Centre in Switzerland, but also designed a pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery back in 2009. See all our stories about SANAA »

Photography is by Iwan Baan, apart from where otherwise stated.

Here’s some more information from the design team:

Louvre Lens

The Architectural Design

The choice of placing the museum on a former mine illustrates the intent of the museum to participate in the conversion of the mining area, while retaining the richness of its industrial past. The Louvre-Lens site is located on 20 hectares of wasteland that was once a major coal mine and has since been taken over by nature since its closing in 1960. The land presents some slight elevation, the result of excess fill from the mine.

Above: ground floor plan – click above to see a larger image

The Japanese architects from SANAA, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa wanted to avoid creating a dominating fortress, opting instead for a low, easily accessible structure that integrates into the site without imposing on it by its presence. The structure is made up of five building of steel and glass. There are four rectangles and one large square with slightly curved walls whose angles touch.

Above: basement floor plan – click above to see larger image

It is reminiscent of the Louvre palace, with its wings laid almost flat. The architects wanted to bring to mind boats on a river coming together to dock gently with each other. The facades are in polished aluminum, in which the park is reflected, ensuring continuity between the museum and the surrounding landscape. The roofs are partially in glass, reflecting a particular advantage to bringing in light, both for exhibiting the works and for being able to the sky from inside the building.

Above: section AA – click above to see larger image

Natural light is controlled by means of a concealment device in the roof and interior shades forming the ceiling. Designed as an answer to the vaulted ceiling, the surface retains in its light the change of seasons, hours and exhibitions.

Above: section BB – click above to see larger image

The entire structure of 28,000 square meters extends over 360 meters long from one end of a central foyer in transparent glass to the other. The buildings located to the East of the entrance – the Grande Galerie and the Glass Pavilion – primarily house the Louvre’s collections.

Above: floor plan of La Galerie du Temps- click above to see larger image

To the West of the entrance is the temporary exhibition gallery and La Scène, a vast «new generation» auditorium, whose programs are in direct relation with the exhibitions.

Above: section of La Galerie du Temps – click above to see larger image

The museum also includes a large, invisible, two level space, buried deep in fill from the site. This space will be dedicated to service functions for the public, but will also be used for storage and logistical functions of the museum. Two independent buildings house the administrative services, to the South, and a restaurant, to the North, thus establishing a link between the museum, the park and the city.

Above: elevation – click above to see larger image

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and Imrey Culbert appeared first on Dezeen.

The fourth and final movie from our series featuring the architecture of Slovenian studio OFIS Arhitekti features Shopping Roof Apartments, an apartment block on the roof of a shopping market in the Alpine village of Bohinjska Bistrica.

Completed in 2007, the apartments were designed by OFIS Arhitekti on an L-shaped plan around a rooftop courtyard. This layout opens up views of the mountains to the south and allows as much sunlight as possible to reach each residence.

Diagonal rows of grey slate tiles clad the building’s pitched roof and wrap down onto some of the walls, protecting them from damage by strong winds and snow.

West-facing balconies also need shelter from the weather and sit within recesses in the facade.

The architects used locally sourced larch for the other elevations, adding vertical panels across the walls and chunky slats around the balconies.

Dezeen first revealed images of Shopping Roof Apartments when it was first completed, alongside an apartment block based on local Alpine hayracks.

See more movies in this series produced by Carniolus, including one about an Alpine holiday hut and another about three baroque houses converted into apartments.

Other projects by OFIS Arhitekti on Dezeen include student housing inspired by wooden baskets and an apartment with staggered floors.

See all our stories about OFIS Arhitekti »

Photography is by Tomaz Gregoric.

Above: first floor plan – click above to see larger image

Above: second floor plan – click above to see larger image

Above: third floor plan – click above to see larger image

Above: roof plan – click above to see larger image

Above: section A – click above to see larger image

Above: section B – click above to see larger image

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by OFIS Arhitekti appeared first on Dezeen.

Shanghai studio Archi-Union used differently sized bricks to make waves across the exterior of this restaurant and members’ club at a cultural heritage park in Chengdu, China (+ slideshow).

The architects used an algorithm to specify nine different brick types, which were laid by hand to create the wave-like texture across each wall.

Sloping roofs visually divide the longitudinal building into separate blocks and their curving shapes were designed by Archi-Union to reference mountains and rivers, as well as a typical form in Chinese architecture.

“The Lan Xi Curtilage is an interpretation of traditional Chinese architecture through the language of digital fabrication methods,” Archi-Union’s Crisie Yuan told Dezeen.

The restaurant and private club are positioned on opposite sides of a central courtyard, where pathways divide the lawn and dictate routes towards different rooms.

The Lan Xi Curtilage is located at the International Intangible Cultural Heritage Park, which plays host to a biennial festival dedicated to language, music, dance, storytelling, carnivals and rituals.

Earlier this year Archi-Union also completed a teahouse and library with twisted concrete walls.

Above: ground floor plan – click above for larger image

Other recent stories from China include skyscrapers inspired by spacecraft and a village of towering apartment blocks in the mountains.

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

See more stories about design in China »
See more stories about brick buildings and projects »

Above: roof plan – click above for larger image

Photography is by Shen Zhonghai.

Here’s some more information from Archi-Union:

The Lan Xi Curtilage

The spatial layout of this project represents a new interpretation of a traditional South China Garden. The multiple layouts of the longitudinal residence and courtyard reflect a hierarchical and multi-dimensional spatial pattern of traditional gardens. The silhouettes of the building’s roof embody rolling mountains and rivers, and also function as metaphor of the traditional Chinese sloping roof culture.

Above: courtyard concept diagram – click above for larger image

The design of the ripple wall derived from a digital interpretation of water, a flexible yet natural conception. We developed an algorithm that mimicked the transient behavior of water, which could be frozen in time allowing a literal architectural expression of its transient behavior. We adapted this algorithm to process a traditional building material, blue bricks, in a staggered joint pattern, in the same way as it produced a surface before, creating a bonded brick pattern with the intrinsic dynamics of water, and providing a light and transparent effect as well as structural walls.

Above: brickwork pattern diagram – click above for larger image

The design focuses on developing an artistic pattern as well as on creating a feasible fabrication pattern. As a robotic arm was not available to lay the bricks automatically due to financial constraints, the masonry had to be completed manually in order to match the rigorous schedule of the three month construction period. Five kinds of brick joint template were devised and the joint gradient was achieved through the permutation and classification of the five template values, which were translated to a simple brick-laying schedule. The finished building is testament that light and shadow playing across the façade embody the dynamic effects of water. A careful combination of digital design and lo-tec fabrication to actualize digital fabrication exactly reflects the combination of digital technologies and local materials and fabrication.

Above: roof structure diagram – click above for larger image

Location: International Intangible Cultural Heritage Park, Chengdu, China
Client: Chengdu Qingyang Suburb Construction & Development Co., Ltd.
Area: Approx 4000m2
Design: June, 2008 – March, 2009
Construction: April, 2010 – October, 2011
Architect: Philip F. Yuan / Archi-Union Architect

The post The Lan Xi Curtilage
by Archi-Union appeared first on Dezeen.

Frank Gehry in a 1976 interview, now digitized and online in the SCI-Arc Media Archive.

You’ve exhausted your Netflix queue and watched every episode of Homeland (twice), but fresh video wonders await you in the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)’s Media Archive, which is now online with more than 1,000 hours–and counting–of architecture and design lectures, symposia, and events dating to 1974. Among the video trove is this 1976 interview with Frank Gehry. “The work of Donald Judd fascinates me. It’s sort of using cheap materials and getting a lot of response out of it,” a 47-year-old Gehry tells Shelly Kappe. “I guess that’s minimal art…I’m not just interested in minimal art, though. I don’t think that’s my whole thing, although it appears that way in some of the buildings. I’m more into the illusionary qualities of a building and creating a visual richness without it really being there. You almost have to trip over it. I guess it’s minimal in that sense.”

Created with funding from the Getty Foundation (as part of the “Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture” initiative) and the National Endowment for the Arts, the web-based archive also includes rare footage of Charles Eames, Zaha Hadid, David Hockney, Rem Koolhaas, John Lautner, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, and Kazuyo Sejima, among hundreds of others. And many of the architects and artists appear more than once, providing opportunities to analyze their development over the span of their careers. Don’t miss the “Exhibits” section, which features handpicked assortments of videos around particular themes. Delve into one called “Unfrozen Music (and Dancing)” and you’ll encounter Richard Neutra‘s wife, Dione, singing folksongs and accompanying herself on the cello.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Huge photographic prints conjure the illusion of translucent marble over the glass walls of this music library at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany (+ slideshow).

Designed by Swiss architect Max Dudler, the Folkwang Library brings together the music archives of three separate institutions into one four-storey building, completing the quadrangle of the former Bendictine monastery that now accommodates the university’s main campus.

The grand baroque buildings of the former abbey had served as both a residence and a prison before their conversion to a university and the library sits over the foundations of a previously demolished military hospital.

Dudler’s concept for the new library was to create “a monolithic body built atop the level base of an old rough stone wall”, with a stepped entrance from the plaza that would reference the raised approaches of the neighbouring buildings.

The marble-like facade was developed in collaboration with photographer Stefan Müller, who visited a quarry to capture close-up images of unhewn stone. Twelve different images were arranged behind the glass panels to reference the twelve different musical notes arranged in a score.

After dark, light filters through the translucent screens to give the building a glowing presence in the courtyard.

A triple-height reading room occupies the building’s first floor and is surrounded by cherry wood bookshelves, while more books can be found on the two gallery floors above.

Lobby and administration areas are located on the ground floor and the library’s archive is contained in the basement.

Other libraries on Dezeen include a glass pyramid in the Netherlands and a knobbly concrete building in France.

See more libraries on Dezeen »

Photography is by Stefan Müller.

Here’s the full press release:

Folkwang Library – the Ruhr district’s central musicology library is handed over to the public

Folkwang University of the Arts is home to one of the largest musicological collections in Germany. Until now, its inventory of approximately 190 000 items of sheet music, sound recordings, images, books and other media has been stored in various archives and libraries across the region. But now, musicological items from three institutions – Folkwang University, the former library of musicology at The Ruhr-University Bochum as well as the music education department of University Duisberg-Essen – have been brought together under a single roof, in a new building designed by architect Max Dudler. Situated on the Werden campus, the library was inaugurated at the end of September 2012.

Folkwang University of the Arts is North Rhine Westphalia’s college of art and music. Its main campus is housed in the former Benedictine abbey of St. Ludgerus in Essen-Werden, situated in the southern Ruhr Valley. The small 8th century site was extended into a princely baroque residence in the 18th century, arranged around a magnificent courtyard (Cour d’honneur). The construction of the new library on the south side of the courtyard by the architect Max Dudler replaces a 19th century military hospital building demolished in 1969.

In 2006 Max Dudler won the design competition organised by the Duisburg branch of the Building and Real Estate Management Authority, North Rhine Westphalia. The project was generously supported by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation.

In 1811, while under French occupation, a prison was set up in Werden Abbey. The Prussians extended this and erected a hospital building on the south side of the courtyard. Upon the demolition of the hospital building, the remaining ensemble of buildings looked unbalanced. Without reproducing the original shape of the prison, the new building encloses this side of the courtyard with its voluminous crystalline structure. The new building’s eastern side adjoins the so-called administrative wing of the old abbey. The volume of the new building corresponds approximately to that of the Prussian wing across the courtyard.

Folkwang Library was conceived as a monolithic body built atop the level base of an old rough stone wall. Max Dudler’s concept for the building is based on the idea of the ‘museum showcase’: An exterior shell protecting the valuable contents within. The functional areas are grouped around the reading room, which lies at the centre of the building. The bookshelves are arranged in strict order around this room, thereby lending scale and structure to the building as a whole.

There are two entrances to the library: The main entrance is from the courtyard via a flight of external steps, designed to approximate the style of the entrances to the other buildings leading off from the courtyard. The library’s other entrance on the Klemensborn serves as an emergency exit. Lending desks, media cubicles, an administration area and cloakroom are situated on the ground floor; the reading room on the first floor. The compact archives are housed in the library’s basement.

The design of the building’s facade was developed in collaboration with the photographer Stefan Müller. Every pane of glass in the facade depicts a large format close-up of a quarry. These photographs reproduce the unhewn stone in its original size. The photographic works were applied directly onto the glazing using a special technique.

In keeping with the elemental meaning of the number twelve in music, twelve motives were pieced together into an overall composition. As with the scagliola technique of the Renaissance used to create stucco marbling, this special photographic technique creates the illusion of the facade being fashioned from the stone material itself.

Above: site plan – click above for larger image

At the same time, a tension is created between the imagery of the textured stone and the flat surface of the glass, reminiscent of the historical sgraffito technique, whereby a graphic embossing is etched into a smooth plaster surface. The new building’s smooth glass surfaces create the perfect impression of a polished monolith. But this is called into question by the translucency of the building’s exterior, thereby playfully breaking the boundaries both from inside and out. Silhouettes of people can be seen beyond the facade. The interior is bathed in a soft, filtered light. In the evening, the building illuminates the courtyard outside.

Above: first floor plan – click above for larger image

The building comprises a reinforced concrete skeleton with concrete cores to provide stiffening. The glass facade is attached to the building’s projecting structural slabs using the mullion-transom system. The concrete pillars are shaped and positioned according to the dimensions of the book shelves. The pillars are clad in cherry wood, which is also used for the shelving in the reading room. Not all the pillars are load-bearing. Some are used as part of an ‘inert’ air-conditioning system.

Above: long section – click above for larger image

With the ventilation pipes being channelled directly through the reinforced concrete ceilings, this building material’s potential as a heat sink is thereby put to good use. Through coupling this with a heat exchanger, an innovative contribution to energy efficiency is achieved.

Above: cross section – click above for larger image

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by Max Dudler appeared first on Dezeen.