Hasta La Ideas

Slideshow: the concrete walls of this church in Tenerife are roughly lined with crushed volcanic rocks.

Completed in 2008 by Spanish architect Fernando Menis of Menis Arquitectos, the church comprises four chunky concrete volumes separated from one another by sliced openings.

Two overlapping cracks in the building’s end wall create a large cross-shaped window that is visible from within the nave.

Gabion walls inside the building also create partitions between rooms.

This is the second concrete church we’ve featured in recent months – see our earlier story about one on the side of a mountain in China.

Photography is by Simona Rota.

Here’s some more text from Menis Arquitectos:

Church in La Laguna

This is a project located in the city of La Laguna on the Island of Tenerife. It is a place that encourages reflection, a meditation space, an intrinsic space where a person of any condition can go to find himself in the temple or join with others in the cultural center.

The building exists as a large piece of concrete split and cut into four large volumes, at these separations movement occurs. This space creates light, allowing to enter and penetrating into the space, they exist as if to signify a higher meaning inspiring a spiritual presence and sense of tranquility.

The building stands stark, stripped of superfluous elements that involve distractions far from its spiritual essence. The void has been sculpted to the same extent. The balance of proportions of void and building was vital to developing the identity of the project.

We chose to exploit the properties of concrete, based on its isotropic nature energy efficiency is optimized by the thermal inertia of the walls. The building also gets a better acoustics result; thanks to a combination of concrete and local volcanic stones called picón, which is chopped afterwards and acts as a rough finish that has a degree of sound absorption that is superior to conventional concrete.

Exterior, interior, structure, form, material and texture are joined inextricably by a complex study of the concrete.

The volumetric impact of the building and its use of essential materials, treating concrete as if it were liquid stone capturing waterfalls of light, create the temple while also optimizing economic resources. The space reflects timeless emotion.

Location: Los Majuelos, San Cristóbal de la Laguna, Tenerife, Spain.
Use: Social Center and Church.
Site Area: 550 m2
Total Constructed Area: 1.050 m2
Cost: 600.000 €
Structure: Reinforced concrete
Materials: Reinforced concrete, local stone, golden sheet.
Status: completed Social Center (2005-2008); under construction Church (2005-..)
Client: Holy Redeemer Parish.
Architect: Fernando Menis
Office: Menis Arquitectos
Project Team: Juan Bercedo, Maria Berga, Sergio Bruns (2005-2010), Roberto Delgado, Niels Heinrich, Andreas Weihnacht
Support Staff: Andrés Pedreño, Rafael Hernández (quantity surveyors), Pedro Cerdá (acoustics), Ojellón Ingenieros, Milian Associats, Nueva Terrain SL (services)
Construction: Construcciones Carolina
Cliente: Obispado de Tenerife

Slideshow: Indonesian architects Aboday have won a competition to significantly extend their country’s National Museum in Jakarta.

A glazed atrium will separate the original museum from the new building, which will be more than twice as tall.

A waffle-gridded canopy on stilts will shelter this entrance lobby and provide a location for informal exhibitions alongside book and gift shops.

A bronze elephant that is currently positioned at the museum’s entrance will also be relocated into this atrium, marking a central position where corridors converge.

Other projects by Aboday on Dezeen include a house with a spiralling concrete slide – see them all here.

Here’s a lengthier project description from the architects:

Museum Nasional Indonesia
(Open National Competition, 1st Prize Winner)

As a national pride, Museum Nasional Indonesia, located in Jakarta, on the west side of the city’s infamous Monumen Nasional (National Monument with its 24 karat gold coated flame on the top) has been suffering from identity crisis for more than a decade. Occupying an 1862 colonial building from the era of Dutch Governor General JCM Radhermacher; it has an iconic Bronze Elephant in its front yard; a gift from Siamese King Chulalongkorn during his visit in 1871 thus its nickname of Museum Gajah (Elephant Museum).

Despite its long journey as an oldest research institution dedicated to Indonesian history, the museum has only been visited by 200.000 visitor during the year of 2010. This is happened in a city whereby one nearby shopping mall welcoming 30,000 visitor a day; and a research about shopping habits shows that people in this city religiously paying a visit to their favorite mall once in 6.5 day! It doesn’t help that the museum has 145,000 artifact and artwork, the largest of its kind in South East Asia; and that its collection span from the Prehistoric Indonesia to the Independence era of 1945.

A new MasterPlan was produce in 1996 as a result of a closed competition; an attempt to revamp the museum by extending its facilities with commercial supporting areas; even thought it was halted halfway due to the global economic crisis that hit Indonesia badly. This MasterPlan with typical approach of ‘archeological-conservation: copying an existing building to achieve a ‘new harmony’ , resulting on the construction of Building B on the Northern part of the original museum creating a confusing dual identity that put the whole complex in dismay rather than the intended harmony. Some attempt to steal its precious collection also force the museum to develop a massive security fencing eliminating the museum role as a supposedly public facility, to become a building with full surveillance element. The museum complex loose its relevance to the life of cosmopolitan Jakarta.

The new scheme to develop the museum complex try to bring back this massive institution to its original role as public facility. It addresses the question of urban context by inserting a new corridor between the existing museum building (A) and building (B) that will maintain an openness to the pedestrian and city park on the Eastern part of the complex. Called Museum Corridor, this East-West axiality of future urban stream further organized and help visitor to navigate their journey within the museum complex. Shaded by a giant urban canopy, the architect introduce new activities along the corridor in a hope to attract wider audience to the otherwise staid institution. Arrange between the row of slender steel rumboid shape colonnade is a series of social and commercial nodes such as bookshop, museum store, orientation/exhibition hall and choices of F&B areas that will surely attract people in this food heaven city.

Made entirely of steel structure and shading of waffle pattern aluminum fin, the glass covered corridor is a magnified version of open terraces surrounding the perimeter of existing building; an attempt to respect and reflect the old without imitating it as guided by Charter of Venice. In this very space that the architect expect people will start diving into the experiential ambience of contemporary social and museum aesthetic. Without even buying ticket, the first time museum visitors will still be able to enjoy the collection in this passage as display starts as early as in the open garden next to the F & B sitting area. This is part of the idea to widen the exhibition area in the museum complex, as absolutism has been indefinitely ended from the issue of museum display presentation.

Perpendicular to this passage corridor, there is a wide alley on the upper level stitching the existing museum building (A), new building (B) and proposed building (C) . Called Museum Alley, it is connected by the curvilinear gentle ramp; circulating the urban stream from the passage below to the key-points at the North-South end of this alley. It also serves as the main handicap access from the secondary drop of on the Northern side of the complex. Vertically co-join by a series of elevator and ramps, the alley bring people further up to areas of temporary exhibition in Building (B) or Display Storage, Offices and 1000 seater auditorium in Building (C). The highest level of this new building block will be occupied by a museum theme restaurant that will claim the magnificent view of Monumen Nasional as it main attraction.

Click above for larger image

Many of museum collections are now scattered around the existing building, some of them are displayed in the courtyard or open verandah with no proper protection, endangering its lifespan by exposing it to weather. Also the lack of display areas within the building resulting in a very cramp museum interior, where visitor and collections sometimes knocking elbow by elbow. With the new pragmatic program of additional 10.000 sqm exhibition space, this situation will be improved as more collections can now be displayed in proper sequence or story.

Click above for larger image

Positioning these exhibition spaces in layers of levels enable museum goers to create their own choreography during the visit; as display will likely be categorized base on theme rather than chronological year. Aside from the exhibition space, new additional storage area of 5500 sqm in the upper level will be designed as such, that it will actively visible to the visitors. A storage passage of floor to ceiling glass wall for museum goers will be inserted within the storage space, allowing the visitor to have a view of what happened inside; an attempt to reduce the possibility of any wrongdoing to those priceless collection when its shielded from the public view.

To establish the criss cross of new Museum Corridor and Museum Alley as the key-point within the building, the bronze elephant will be relocated, positioned on a 2 storey pedestal right on the crossing path of these 2 main thoroughfares. People from both axial of East-West and North-South will be able to see this iconic sculpture as the museum’s mainvisual connector. Generating objections during the competition presentation as many museum insider are worried that the relocation will cause museum a lost of identity, the architect rather convinced that relocating an old icon to new position will strengthen the meaning and put the symbol into a more relevant context of time and space.

Architect: Aboday

Competition Team
Partner in Charge: Ary Indra
Team: Rafael David, Johansen Yap, Ferdy Apriady, Radhi Maulanza, Vani Wijaya, Agie Aditama, Budi Yono, Dugi Maheswardhitra

Artist Impression: Rizal Bayu
Client: Museum Nasional Indonesia

Slideshow: a Ferrari automotive museum designed by the late Czech architect and Future Systems founder Jan Kaplický has opened in Modena, Italy.

Following Kaplický’s death in early 2009, the Enzo Ferrari Museum has been completed by London practice Shiro Studio under the direction of former Future Systems associate Andrea Morgante.

The museum comprises two buildings. The first is the early nineteenth century former house and workshop of Ferrari’s father, renovated to house a 40-metre-long gallery, while the second is a new glass-fronted structure that curves around it.

This new non-linear structure has a streamlined yellow aluminium roof that matches the colour of the Ferrari logo and features sliced incisions intended to resemble the air intake vents on the bonnet of a car.

A gently-sloping ramp leads down into the building’s basement level exhibition hall, where up to 21 cars can be exhibited on a series of raised platforms.

Above: photograph is by Andrea Morgante

An exhibition of models and key drawings spanning Kaplický’s career took place at the Design Museum the year he passed away – you can find photographs and a podcast from it here.

Above: photograph is by Andrea Morgante

Photography is Studio Cento29, apart from where otherwise stated.

Above: photograph is by David Pasek

Here’s a more comprehensive project description from Andrea Morgante:

Enzo Ferrari Museum, Modena, Italy

In 2004 Future Systems won an international competition to design a new museum in Modena, Italy. Dedicated to motor racing legend and entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari (1898 – 1988), the museum comprises exhibition spaces within the early nineteenth century house where the motor racing giant was born and raised, and its adjoining workshop, as well as a separate, newly constructed exhibition building.

Above: photograph is by Andrea Morgante

Following the death of Jan Kaplicky in 2009, the office of Future Systems was dissolved ¹. Andrea Morgante, formerly of Future Systems and now director of Shiro Studio, was appointed to oversee the museum’s completion. The new building has been constructed to Kaplický’s original design– it is sensitive to the existing historical context, combines the latest in construction and energy saving technology, and resonates in spirit, language and materials with the cars it is intended to showcase. The fully restored house and workshop provide additional exhibition space designed by Morgante.

Above: photograph is by Andrea Morgante

New Exhibition Building

The sculpted yellow aluminium roof with its ten incisions – intentionally analogous to those air intake vents on the bonnet of a car – allows for natural ventilation and day lighting, and both celebrates and expresses the aesthetic values of car design. With its 3,300 square metres of double-curved aluminium, the roof is the first application of aluminium in this way on such a large scale. Working together with boat builders whose familiarity with organic sculpted forms and waterproofing made them the ideal partner, and cladding specialists, the form is constructed from aluminium sheets fitted together using a patented tongue and groove system. The bright Modena yellow of the roof is Ferrari’s corporate colour, as seen on the Ferrari insignia where it forms the backdrop to the prancing horse. It is also the official colour of Modena.

Above: photograph is by Andrea Morgante

Kaplický wanted to create a sensitive dialogue between the two exhibition buildings that showed consideration for Ferrari’s early home and underscored the importance of the museum as a unified complex made up of several elements. The views out of the new exhibition building dramatically frame the house and workshop, while views from outside the house and workshop immediately reveal the function and content of the new exhibition building. The height of the new exhibition building reaches a maximum of 12 metres – the same height as the house – with its volume expanding below ground level. In addition, the new building gently curves around the house in a symbolic gesture of appreciation.

The glass façade is curved in plan and tilts at an angle of 12.5 degrees. Each pane is supported by pre-tensioned steel cables and is able to withstand 40 tonnes of pressure. The technical specification of these panes and cables means that greater transparency in the façade is achieved with maximum functionality. In the summer months a thermo-sensor activates the windows in the façade and roof allowing cool air to circulate. With 50% of the internal volume of the main exhibition building set below ground level, geothermal energy is used to heat and cool the building. It is the first museum building in Italy to use geothermal energy. The building also employs photovoltaic technology and water recycling systems.

Visitors entering the new building have uninterrupted views into the entire exhibition space: a large, open, white room, where the walls and floor transition lightly into one another and are perceived as a single surface. A stretched semi-transparent membrane spreads light evenly across the roof, and in combination with the slits running from side to side which allow air to escape and give a ribbed effect, recalls the language of a car interior. A bookshop and café are situated to one side of the entrance and facilities to the other. Both are painted the same Modena yellow as the roof and take the form of blister-like pods. A gently sloping ramp gradually leads the visitor around the building from the ground floor to the basement level, with display stands designed by Morgante punctuating the circulation path. These stands lift the cars 45 centimetres so that they can be viewed from different angles and appreciated as works of art rather than objects simply placed in a room. Up to twenty-one cars can be displayed in this open space at any one time. Supplementary exhibition material is displayed in leather cases located along the perimeter wall. At the bottom of the ramp and directly below the entrance, an audiovisual room forms a permanent part of the exhibition. A flexible teaching space and a conference room with a carved out opening allowing views up into the entrance area are located next to it.

Restored House and Workshop

The two-storey house and workshop built by Ferrari’s father in the 1830s has been completely refurbished. Later additions to the house and workshop have been removed and, with the exception of two internal bracing structures that have been inserted in accordance with Italian anti-seismic regulations to give structural rigidity, no alterations have been made. The main gallery space is located within what was the double height workshop. Here Morgante has designed a contemporary exhibition display system, which incorporates digital projections, objects owned by Ferrari, information panels and other material.

The display system was conceived as a large-scale vertical book that allows the visitor to read the different chapters of Ferrari’s life through various media; a three-dimensional immersive biography. The system takes the form of a sinuous wall separated into pages, so that as visitors progress down the room, they are obliged to gradually discover each page and chapter in sequence. At every point the next chapter is concealed so as to maintain interest and create a sense of excitement. This organic landscape stretches through the entire length of the 40 metre long space and soft, low-level backlighting gently illuminates both it and the room, making the space intimate in spite of its size. At the northern end of the main gallery, in the original house, two smaller exhibition spaces are located next to one another. Administrative spaces are situated directly adjacent to them and on the first floor.

Client: Fondazione Casa Natale Enzo Ferrari
Location: Via Paolo Ferrari 85, Modena, Italy
Concept design: 2004
Completion date: 2012
Site area: 10,600 m²
Gross floor area: 5,200 m²
Contract value: €14.200.000

Architect: Jan Kaplický (Future Systems)
Project Architect: Andrea Morgante
Competition team: Jan Kaplický, Andrea Morgante, Liz Middleton, Federico Celoni
Project team (Preliminary, Detailed, Construction) (2005-2007): Andrea Morgante, Søren Aagaard, Oriana Cremella, Chris Geneste, Cristina Greco, Clancy Meyers, Liz Middleton, Itai Palti, Maria Persichella, Filippo Previtali, Daria Trovato.
Art Direction (2009-2012): Andrea Morgante (Shiro Studio)
Gallery Exhibition design: Jan Kaplický (Future Systems), Andrea Morgante (Shiro Studio)
Enzo Ferrari House Exhibition design: Andrea Morgante (Shiro Studio)

Project Management and Site Supervision: Politecnica- Modena
Structural, Mechanical & Electrical Design, Environmental Impact Assessement, Health & Safety (Preliminary, Detailed & construction stages): Politecnica

Main Contractor: Società Consortile Enzo
CCC soc. coop. (Leader), Ing. Ferrari s.p.a, ITE Group s.r.l, CSM.
Technical Director: Giuseppe Coppi (CdC – Modena)

Light permeates this civic hall designed by Magén Arquitectos in southern Spain through blocks of alabaster in the facade.

The building is constructed from translucent alabaster and opaque limestone that were extracted from native quarries.

The harsh geometry contrasts with the warmer, softer bamboo finish that can be found in the more significant internal spaces where the delegates gather.

White stone walls allude to the sobriety and plainness of traditional Iberian vernacular as well as referencing material groups from local quarries.

Three bands organise the spaces: the first and second hold the access, lobby, management and adminstration spaces while the third band holds less public spaces such as the auditorium and classrooms.

Photography is by Pedro Pegenaute

Here are some more details from Magen Arquitectos:

The Bajo Martin County is formed by nine historic populations in Teruel, located in the basin of the River Martin. Alabaster, which is extracted from quarries in the area, is one of its main resources, dedicated to both the export and cultural promotion, through routes, meeting craft and art activities, organized annually by the Center for Integrated Development of Alabaster.

The site is located on the outskirts of Hijar, capital of the county, along the national highway N-232 and the old abandoned silo. It was a dysfunctional urban environment, including existing industrial buildings, and the front of residential townhouses, just across the road.

The absence of urban qualities in the environment legitimizes a certain autonomous condition of the building, rising from the land to form a unified solution, clear and compact. Therefore, the necessary link of building and place, reinforced by its institutional character, not articulated from urban relationships with the immediate environment, but from references to geographical landscape, history and culture, present in their external configuration. The group of carved volumes on local materials -stone and alabaster, alludes, in an abstract and geometric way, to stone groups that occur in quarries in the area. The stone surfaces, opaque or translucent, exhibit materials and expressive features of alabaster in relation to the day or night lighting.

The ordered group volumes in the outside, compact, heavy and massive, is poured inside. The space pierces and perforates the solid volume, producing a dynamic system of voids, connected visually and spatially, diagonally, linking the three floors and articulating the circulation spaces, access and meeting. The continuity with the outside material and the presence of natural light into the interior through various gaps, strengthen the condition of the interior space as empty excavated, drawn from the section as a fundamental tool of the project.

The functional organization of the project is divided into three bands constructed parallel to the path. The first is the plenary hall access and, second, the lobby and areas of management and administration, and third, to the auditorium and classrooms. The distribution of plants distinguishes between the more public areas at ground and first floors, and more related to internal management and work in the second. In contrast to the stone walls inside the bamboo wood finish in the most significant spaces such as the plenary hall, underscores its public, institutional and representative.

Slideshow: German architects Schneider+Schumacher have completed an underground gallery that creates a bulge beneath the lawn of the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt.

Almost 200 circular skylights arranged in a grid across the lawn let light filter down into the exhibition hall, while the artificial hill creates a domed central ceiling.

The garden remains accessible to visitors, who can walk over the translucent skylights.

Entry to the new gallery is via a staircase in the museum’s main foyer.

Schneider+Schumacher won a competition to design the extension in 2008 – check out our earlier story to see the original renders.

You can see a selection of other underground projects on Dezeen here.

Photography is by Norbert Miguletz.

Extension of the Städel

In Fall 2007, the Städel Museum held a competition for extension work to be carried out on the museum, whereby eight prominent German and international architecture firms were invited to take part: Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York; Gigon/Guyer Architekten, Zurich; Jabornegg & Pálffy, architects, Vienna; Kuehn Malvezzi Architekten GmbH, Berlin; Sanaa Ltd / Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa & Associates, Tokyo; schneider+schumacher Planungsgesellschaft mbH, Frankfurt/Main; UNStudio, Architects, Amsterdam and Wandel Hoefer Lorch + Hirsch Müller, Frankfurt/Main.

In February 2008, an international jury chaired by Louisa Hutton (architect BDA, Berlin) announced Frankfurt architects schneider+schumacher as the competition winners. “An excellent choice,” were the words used by the press when reporting on the announcement. “A shining jewel by day, a pool of light by night,” applauded the competition jury.

The new building adjoins the garden wing completed at the start of the 20th century and itself the first extension of the original museum building, which was built on Frankfurt’s Schaumainkai in 1878. In contrast to any of the extension work carried out to date, the new section of the museum will not be above ground; the generous new space planned by schneider+schumacher will be located beneath the Städel garden.

The new exhibition space will be accessed via a central axis from the main entrance on the museum’s river side. By opening the two tympanums to the right and left of the museum’s main entrance foyer, visitors will be able to reach the Metzler Foyer level.

A staircase will then lead from this area down into the 3,000-square-meter museum extension beneath the garden. The garden halls’ interior the will be characterized by the elegantly curved, seemingly weightless ceiling, spanning the entire exhibition space. 195 circular skylights varying between 1.5 and 2.5 meters in circumference will flood the space below with natural light as well as form a captivating pattern in the garden area above.

Outside, the green, dome-like protrusions, which visitors will be able to walk across, will lend the Städel garden a unique look and create a new architectural hallmark for the museum.

“Frankfurt will not only gain a new, unique exhibition building,” declared the competition jury, “but as a ‘green building’ it will also be very much abreast of its times.” The generously spacious, light-flooded garden halls will be the new home of the contemporary art section of the museum’s collection.