Hasta La Ideas

Architects AL_A have been granted permission to construct a subterranean gallery beneath a new entrance courtyard at the V&A museum in London.

Bounded by the existing museum walls on Exhibition Road, the public courtyard will provide a space for installations and events, with a cafe and an additional route into the building.

Patterns in the paving will correspond with the folds of the 30-metre-long exhibition room ceiling below, while glazed inserts will let in natural light.

“We’re reimagining the dialogue between the V&A and Exhibition Road,” explains architect Amanda Levete, ”and in doing so, creating a new public space in the cultural and learning heart of London.”

AL_A won a competition to design the extension last year, ahead of proposals by six other candidates.

The project is scheduled to complete in 2015.

The V&A also recently announced plans to open a new furniture gallery later this year.

See more projects by AL_A here, or click here to read more about the V&A museum.

Here’s the full press release from AL_A:

AL_A V&A Exhibition Road project receives planning permission

AL_A announces that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has granted planning permission for the V&A Exhibition Road development to create a new gallery, public courtyard and entrance into the museum from Exhibition Road. AL_A’s design aims to unlock the potential to bring in audiences to the V&A by proposing a relationship between museum and street that does not exist today.

The scheme creates a physical permeability with the formation of a new public space, a courtyard, which will provide not only an additional entry point, but has the potential to change the visitor journey through the museum and to allow them to discover more of the collections. An outdoor room bounded on all four sides by architecturally-significant façades, it will create a place to pick up a coffee or have a drink after work, a space for major installations and events, but above all a space for appropriation by visitors.

The design celebrates the descent to the new gallery as an important part of the visitor’s journey, woven into the fabric of the museum and framing unique views of the museum’s fine façades. Visitors will be drawn to the gallery below by natural light, lessening until reaching the bottom where a dramatic pool of daylight appears magically underground. Descent and ascent have been designed with a specific focus on the manipulation of light and interplay between new and old.

The gallery will be a new home for a full programme of the V&A’s world-class exhibitions. A folded plate ceiling will span 30 metres and soar over the visitor despite being underground. Its design was inspired by the neo-Gothic and neo-Classic museological tradition of ornate ceilings, continuing the didactic role in promoting the art and craft of manufacture.

The structural form and geometry of the gallery ceiling seeps through to the pattern of the courtyard above, giving a perspective of the exhibition space below. The visitor will be aware of the gallery directly beneath their feet. In turn, the structural solution of the ceilings generates the paving pattern of the courtyard.

Amanda Levete, Principal of AL_A said: “This is a defining project for AL_A. We’re reimagining the dialogue between the V&A and Exhibition Road and in doing so, creating a new public space in the cultural and learning heart of London. It’s made particularly special by the V&A collections having inspired so much of our work.”

Work on site will commence in 2012 with proposed completion by the end of 2015, opening in 2016.

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by AL_A appeared first on Dezeen.

Movie: architect Steven Holl gives a tour of the gallery beneath a pool of water he designed at the Daeyang Gallery and House in South Korea in the first of two movies by architectural filmmakers Spirit of Space. 

Holl explains how he was inspired by the patterns of a musical score and how daylight floods into the underground rooms to create “a perfect light”.

See more images of the building in our earlier story, and see more projects by Steven Holl here.

Another movie we’ve published by Spirit of Space features a pavilion at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo – watch it here.

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Gallery and House appeared first on Dezeen.

Slideshow: OMA have created a stage set for an ancient outdoor theatre in Sicily that dates back to the fifth century BC.

A circular wooden platform provides the main stage, while the backdrop is a seven-metre-high tilted disc that can spin around or split down the middle. A ring of scaffolding completes the circle of the tiered amphitheatre to form an elevated walkway behing the stage.

The set will remain in place throughout the summer and was inaugurated on Friday with a performance of ancient Greek play Prometheus Unbound.

OMA have unveiled a few new projects in the last month, including a performance institute in New York and an arts venue in Moscow. Rem Koolhaas gave Dezeen a quick introduction to that project, which you can watch here.

An exhibition documenting the working processes of the firm also took place at the end of 2011 at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, where we filmed a series of movies with OMA partners Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf and Iyad Alsaka. Watch the series here.

Photography is by Alberto Moncada.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

OMA designs stage set for ancient Greek theatre in Syracuse

OMA’s design for the stage set at the Greek Theatre in Syracuse, Sicily, was inaugurated with the performance of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Unbound (directed by Claudio Longhi). The scenography features three temporary architectural devices that reinterpret the spaces of the theatre, which dates from the 5th century BCE.

OMA’s interventions will be dramatically exploited and adapted at strategic moments within this summer’s cycle of plays staged by the Istituto Nazionale del Dramma Antico, which also includes Euripides’ Bacchae (dir. Antonio Calenda) and Aristophane’s The Birds (dir. Roberta Torre).

The first intervention, the Ring, is a suspended walkway that completes the semi-circle of the terraced seating, encompassing the stage and the backstage, and giving actors an alternative way of entering the scene.

The Machine is a fully adaptable backdrop for the plays: a sloping circular platform, seven metres high, mirroring the amphitheatre. The backdrop can rotate, symbolizing the passage of 13 centuries during Prometheus’s torture; split down the middle, it can also be opened, allowing the entrance of the actors, and symbolizing dramatic events like the Prometheus being swallowed in the bowels of the earth.

The Raft, a circular stage for the actors and dancers, reimagines the orchestra space as a modern thymele, the altar that in ancient times was dedicated to Dionysian rites.

The Greek Theatre scenography – executed by AMO, the unit within OMA dedicated to non-architectural and transient projects – is part of the office’s long history of designing innovative performance spaces, from the Netherlands Dance Theatre (1987) and the Wyly Theatre in Dallas (with Rex, 2009), to the Taipei Performing Arts Centre – three adaptable theatres plugged into a central cube, now under construction in Taiwan. AMO has also designed scenography for ephemeral events such as Prada catwalk shows and Francesco Vezzoli’s 24-Hour Museum in Paris earlier this year.

Architects OMA have unveiled plans to convert a former theatre in Upstate New York into an performance institute commissioned by Serbian artist Marina Abramovic.

The Marina Abramović Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art is to be located in Hudson and will operate as both a performance venue and an archive hosting workshops and lectures.

Performances hosted inside the building will last from between a few hours to a few days, so the architects will create bespoke chairs on wheels that can be moved to quiet areas when visitors fall asleep.

The institute is the latest in a string of new projects for the practice, following a masterplan to expand Moscow and a new centre for contemporary culture in the same city. Rem Koolhaas also gave Dezeen a quick introduction to the new gallery at the launch event, which you can watch here.

See also: all our stories about OMA.

Here’s some more information from OMA:

OMA to design Marina Abramović Institute in Hudson

Artist Marina Abramovic has commissioned OMA to develop a former theater in Hudson, upstate New York, into the Marina Abramović Institute for the Preservation of Performance Art (MAI). The project, led by Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas in OMA’s New York office, marries Abramović’s 40 years of pioneering work in the genre with OMA’s innovation in theatres, museums and curation.

The mission of the MAI is to cultivate new kinds of performance while functioning as a living archive, preserving and hosting performances of historic pieces. Abramovic plans to use the space as a laboratory for exploring time-based and immaterial art – including performance, dance, theater, film, video, opera, and music – through collaboration with practitioners in the realms of science, technology, and education.

Working with the local Hudson community as well as schools and institutions from around the world, the MAI will host workshops, public lectures and festivals. As well as training artists, Abramovic also wants to train audiences in the mental and physical disciplines of creating and experiencing long-durational work.

Abramovic commented: “MAI’s aim is to protect and preserve the intellectual and spiritual legacy of performance art from the 1970′s into the future, and will serve as an homage to time-based and immaterial art.”

Led by partners Shohei Shigematsu and Rem Koolhaas in collaboration with associate Jason Long, the project will be designed locally out of OMA’s New York office. Shigematsu commented: “We are excited to design a new performance typology, unique in its integration of specific parameters for long duration works.”

The institute will be housed in a former theatre, which later became an indoor tennis court, then an antiques warehouse and market before falling into disrepair. Abramovic bought the theatre in 2007. OMA’s design will enhance the existing structure to accommodate both the research and production of performance art. As a venue specifically created for long duration performances, OMA will also develop new types of furniture, lighting and other elements to facilitate the viewing of such works.

Slideshow: Danish architects 3XN have completed a riverside cultural centre in Norway with glass hills outlined on its facade.

A roof with a timber underside arches across the interior spaces, which include a theatre, cinema, concert hall, library, gallery and cafe.

White walls feature both inside and out to match the painted wooden houses of the surrounding town of Mandal.

The architects won a competition to design the centre, named The Arch, back in 2003 and are also working on proposals for a bridge leading across the river.

In the last year 3XN have also completed an experimental food laboratory – see it here.

Photography is by Adam Mõrk.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

Elegance and conviviality merge under The Arch in Mandal, Norway

Historic white wooden houses, charming narrow streets, a river running though the center and beach and forest nearby. The town of Mandal is the essence of southern Norwegian idyll. Danish practice, 3XN, has designed the town’s new cultural center, a project which required great sensitivity to the town’s special environment.

A House of the People

The cultural center, called “The Arch”, is about creating a common base for the cultural institutions of Mandal. Thus, The Arch contains theater, cinema, concert hall, library, gallery and café, offering activities for all ages of the town’s 15,000 inhabitants. “The Arch is a house of the people, so we designed a building that in an elegant and soft motion gathers the town’s cultural life, while the modern expression bears witness to a town in development”, explains Jan Ammundsen, Partner and Head of Design at 3XN.

The modern expression is created with a deep respect for the history of the town and the surrounding landscape. The arched shape refers partly to the soft hills, located around Mandal, and partly to the industrial center, which previously was located on the site. It is planned that the building will have a green roof, which will contribute to giving the building an organic expression, and will increase integration with the surrounding nature, when looking at the Arch from one of Mandal’s popular vantage points. The white color corresponds with the old white wooden houses, which Mandal is known for and which gives the town its character.

“A Dream”

The wish for optimal use of daylight, and a building that seems open and attractive to visitors, resulted in a facade characterized by panoramic windows facing the river and city. “It is important that the building’s activities are visible, and that the building connects to all the residents. Therefore, we have also emphasized designing the south-facing outdoor areas, so they are attractive sunny, recreational spaces with views to the river. In this way the building brings value to everyone in Mandal,” says Jan Ammundsen.

According to the manager of the cultural center, Alfred Solgaard, The Arch has had no difficulties in attracting visitors: “In just the first two and a half months after we took the building into use 25,000 people visited, and that was even before the official opening”, says Alfred Solgaard, and adds, “the Arch is a dream come true for our entire community”.

Besides the design of the architecture for the cultural center 3XN have delivered the graphic design for the Arch, the area’s master plan and a bridge that will go from the cultural center and over the river. The bridge, which is under construction will, in line with the cultural center, has curved organic shapes and pitches from which the view of Norway’s southernmost town can be enjoyed in full.

Team:
Architect: 3XN, Denmark
Client: Halse Property, Norway
Engineer: Rambøll, Norway
Landscape: Asplan Viak, Norway
Theatre Technique: AIX architects, Sweden
Art Decorations: Marianne Bratteli “Chaos and Gaia”, Norway

Building Data:
Address Havnegt. 2, 4515 Mandal, Norway
Price: approx. 33 million euros
Size: approx. 4,500 m2
Floors: 2
Construction: Concrete
Façade: Aluminum and glass

Timeline:
Construction Start: December 2009
Completion: December 2011
Official opening: April 2012