Hasta La Ideas

News: here’s a preview of the nearly completed Pérez Art Museum Miami by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, which opens tomorrow in downtown Miami and which suggests a new “kind of vernacular” for the city, according to Jacques Herzog (+ slideshow + photography is by Iwan Baan).

Taking over from the former Miami Art Museum, PAMM accommodates 3000 square-metres of galleries within a sprawling three-storey complex that features a huge elevated veranda, boxy concrete structures and large expanses of glazing.

Herzog & de Meuron designed the building to suit the tropical climate of Miami. The veranda, which in time will be filled with plants, is raised up on stilts to surround the building, creating an intermediate space between the galleries and the surrounding city.

“This building is just like a shelter,” said Jacques Herzog. “A roof just like the floor we stand on, under which volumes are assembled to collect, to expose and to show art.”

“Miami doesn’t have any local vernacular,” Herzog said on a tour of the building earlier today, explaining how he wanted to avoid recreating the “decorated boxes” of Miami’s iconic Art Deco District.

“It looks nice and it’s associated with Miami,” he said of the art deco buildings. “But in fact Miami doesn’t have any local vernacular. It has something that the tourists especially like which is this art deco style. This [the Pérez Art Museum Miami] is somehow deconstructing that. It’s the opposite: it’s not based on the box, it’s based on permeability.”

Herzog compared the architectural approach to the Miami building to Herzog & de Meuron’s barn-like Parrish Art Museum on Long Island, which was completed last year.

“As much as the Parrish is an answer to this more northern exposure and is a totally different typology, this is an answer for here, sitting on stilts, with the floods, with the shading, and especially the plants.”

“I think something that could become a kind of vernacular is a building that is specific for this place,” he continued, comparing architecture to cooking.

“The ingredients here are the climate, the vegetation, the water, the sun. The building should respond to all these things,” he said. “Like cooking in winter is different to cooking in summer because you don’t have the same ingredients so you shouldn’t make things that make sense in summer, in winter.”

Stilts support the base of the veranda, then turn into columns to support an overhanging roof that shelters both indoor and outdoor spaces. Clusters of suspended columns covered in vertical gardens by botanist Patrick Blanc hang from the roof structure.

“There’s a very thin layer between the inside and the outside,” added Herzog. “As soon as there are more plants, this will help to make that more accessible, and not such a shock.”

The interior is complete and the exhibitions are installed; when Dezeen visited earlier today contractors were still finalising the landscaping around the building and installing the vertical gardens.

A permanent collection featuring artworks from the museum’s 1800-piece collection occupy the two lower levels of the building. Special exhibitions will also be accommodated on the first floor, while the uppermost level is dedicated to education facilities.

PAMM opens with the first major international exhibition of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, alongside shows dedicated to Cuban painter Amelia Peláez and Haitian-born artist Edouard Duval-Carrié.

The building is located beside a motorway near Biscayne Bay and is the first completed museum of a waterfront complex that will also be home to the Grimshaw-designed Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science when it opens in 2015.

Photography is by Iwan Baan.

Here’s the transcript of Herzog talking about the building at this morning’s press tour:

“Since the early 90s I have been coming [to Miami] with my wife, long before we knew we were going to be building and we were shocked about what is vernacular here: the decorated box. There’s this climate and this reputation, this didn’t make sense, but of course it looks nice and it’s associated with Miami.

“But in fact Miami doesn’t have any local vernacular. It has something that the tourists especially like which is this art deco style. This [the Pérez Art Museum Miami] is somehow deconstructing that, it’s the opposite, it’s not based on the box, it’s based on permeability. Also this transparency with water, vegetation, garden, city and art. Art is intertwined with all these elements.

“In some ways I think this is really interesting because we are here at a crossroads between south and north: South America and North America and other parts. We, with this Eurocentric, America-centric view, didn’t have any focus until not so long ago. The building should help make that possible. This building is just like a shelter, a roof just like the floor we stand on, under which volumes are assembled to collect, to expose and to show art.

“What makes it local? I think thats it’s local because, if we compare it with cooking, the ingredients here are really the climate, the vegetation, the water, the sun. The building should respond to all these things. This sounds simple and it is simple but it’s not easy to achieve, to not make it so boring and generic.

“It is I think something that could become a kind of vernacular, a typical building, a specific building for this place. Just like the Parrish [Art Museum] in the north, which recently opened. We’ve done other museums, the Tate Modern, that answer to what is already there. Like cooking in winter is different in summer, because you don’t have the same ingredients so you shouldn’t make things that make sense in summer, in winter. As much as the Parrish is an answer to this more northern exposure and is a totally different typology, this is an answer for here, sitting on stilts, above the floods, with the shading, and especially the plants.

“We’re very happy to have a Patrick Blanc working on this. Because when we saw the old museum, and you come into the museum over this very hot plaza, and there is a black glass door and that says this is outside and that is inside, it’s like boom! Such a shock, because what it gives way to is an air-conditioned, climatically-controlled box with a very thin layer between the inside and the outside.

“The plants here should be like a filter to make the transition between inside and outside. As soon as there are more plants, this will help to make that more accessible, and not such a shock.”

Here’s a detailed description of the design from the museum:

Pérez Art Museum Miami

Designed by Herzog & de Meuron, the new Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) reflects the natural and urban landscape of Miami and responds to the city’s rapid growth as a cultural destination. The new facility borders the MacArthur Causeway with its front façade oriented toward the bay, making it a highly visible landmark amid Miami’s cityscape. PAMM includes 32,000 square feet of galleries as well as education facilities, a shop, waterfront café, and exterior plazas and gardens.

The new building supports the institution’s mission to serve local populations as a dynamic social forum, stimulating collection growth and enabling the Museum to better fulfill its role as the principal contemporary visual arts and educational resource in the region.

The Building and Landscaping

The three-story facility includes 200,000 square feet of programmable space, comprised of 120,000 square feet of interior space―a three-fold increase from the Museum’s previous facility―and 80,000 square feet on the exterior. PAMM sits upon an elevated platform and below a canopy, both of which extend far beyond the Museum’s walls creating a shaded veranda. Open to light and fresh air, surface parking will be located beneath the platform and surrounded by landscaping and terraces. Stairs as wide as the plot connect the platform to the bay and a waterfront promenade, creating a continuous, open civic space that conjoins community, nature, architecture, and contemporary art.

Designed by artist and botanist Patrick Blanc using his advanced horticultural techniques, native tropical plants hang from the canopy between the structural columns and platforms. The project team also worked closely with landscape architects Arquitectonica Geo to select a range of plant life that could withstand exposure to sun and wind as well as the city’s storm season. The platform provides a comfortable outdoor temperature by natural means. The intermediate space has the ecological benefit of minimizing the sun’s impact on the building’s envelope and reducing the cost of controlling the environment for artworks.

Curatorial Plan

In collaboration with the Museum’s leadership, Herzog & de Meuron developed a series of gallery typologies to best display and develop PAMM’s growing collection. Different modes of display are deployed in a non-linear sequence, allowing visitors to map their own experiences of the Museum’s collection and physical space. The permanent collection galleries are located on the first and second levels. The latter of which also houses special exhibitions. Offering natural light and views of the surrounding park and bay, outward-facing exhibition spaces alternate with more enclosed galleries that focus on single subjects.

Art is displayed throughout the entire building, including the garden and the parking garage. A mostly glazed envelope on the first and third levels reveals the public and semi-public functions within: entry halls, auditorium, shop, and café on the first level, education facilities and offices on the third. By offering a specific range of differently proportioned spaces and a variation of interior finishes, as opposed to a traditional sequence of generic white cubes, PAMM proposes a new model of curating and experiencing art.

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creates new “vernacular” for Miami appeared first on Dezeen.

This rusty metal tower was designed by Austrian studio Marte.Marte Architects to help tourists locate excavated Roman ruins on the outskirts of a town in western Austria (+ slideshow).

Stefan Marte of Marte.Marte Architects created the structure between the remains of two Roman villas at the location of an ancient traffic intersection in Brederis. Few traces of the original buildings remain, so the new installation provides the only landmark above ground level.

“The tower-like sculpture is designed to make the excavation site visible for miles around,” Marte told Dezeen.

Primarily constructed from Corten steel, the ten-metre tower has a glazed lower section that exposes a hollow centre, allowing visitors to look down to the underground remains.

“The tower acts like a magnifying glass, offering an insight into history,” said the architect, whose previous projects include a holiday home with roughly hewn concrete walls and a twisted concrete bridge.

A platform extends from one side of the structure to create a standing area, while an adjacent wall displays replicas of Roman objects. Both were also constructed from pre-weathered steel that has been riveted together.

“Corten steel was chosen for its naturalness and purity, making it the ideal material for an expressive landmark in the vast, open landscape,” added Marte.

“The texture of the stainless steel rivets is reminiscent of the intricacy of Roman chain armour.”

Stones unearthed during the archeological dig were used to build low walls above the ancient foundations of the two villas, revealing the original locations of walls.

Photography is by Marc Lins.

Here’s a short project description from Marte.Marte Architects:

Roman Villa, Feldkirch 2008

The excavations at the roman villa in Brederis offer important insights on Roman settlement history in the Feldkirch area.

A walk-in sculpture was planted between the remnants of the foundations of two different house types. The disc-like tower and the space creating wall fragments along a trapezoid-shaped plateau stage the location in front of the collection of findings.

The use of Corten steel throughout permeates the site with an historic aura and underscores the sculpted effect of the free form that helps make the excavation site a landmark.

Client: City of Rankweil
Location: 6830 Rankweil-Brederis

Architecture: Marte.Marte Architekten ZT GmbH, Weiler
Arch.DI Bernhard Marte
Arch.DI Stefan Marte
Exhibition area: 42m2

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by Marte.Marte Architects appeared first on Dezeen.

Architecture studio Renzo Piano Building Workshop has completed the extension to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, doubling the gallery space originally designed by American architect Louis Kahn (+ slideshow).

Renzo Piano Building Workshop designed a new building for the Kimbell Art Museum site to house the museum’s growing collection and provide educational facilities.

“The programmes and collection of Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum have grown dramatically in recent years, far beyond anything envisioned by the museum in the 1970s,” said the studio.

The new structure faces the west facade of Kahn’s building and is similar in height, plan and orientation to the existing museum.

Its front facade is split into three sections to echo the internal layout. Visitors enter the glazed lobby in the central third of the building, which has large gallery spaces either side.

The roof extends past the external glass walls, supported by a colonnade of concrete columns.

Daylight coming through the gallery ceilings is controlled by layers of stretched fabric, glass and aluminium louvers between the wooden beams.

Glazed passageways lead from the lobby and south gallery into the second half of the building, buried beneath a grass-covered roof so the extension doesn’t dwarf Kahn’s building and to insulate the spaces.

Further exhibition space, an auditorium of 299 seats and classrooms are all located in this underground section.

“Views through the new building to the landscape and Kahn building beyond emphasise the key motifs of transparency and openness,” said Renzo Piano Building Workshop. “The new facility will be highly energy efficient, requiring only one fourth of the energy consumed by the Kahn building.”

Louis Kahn designed the original vaulted concrete building to house the museum in 1972. Piano worked in Kahn’s office during the 1960s and cites the late architect as his mentor.

Photography is by Nick Lehoux, unless otherwise stated.

More information from Renzo Piano Building Workshop follows:

Kimbell Art Museum

The Kimbell Art Museum’s original building was designed by Louis Kahn in 1972.

The new building by RPBW accommodates the museum’s growing exhibition and education programmes, allowing the original Kahn building to revert to the display of the museum’s permanent collection.

The programmes and collection of Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum have grown dramatically in recent years, far beyond anything envisioned by the museum in the 1970s.

Addressing the severe lack of space for the museum’s exhibition and education programmes, the new building provides gallery space for temporary exhibitions, classrooms and studios for the museum’s education department, a large auditorium of 299 seats, an expanded library and underground parking.

The expansion roughly doubles the Museum’s gallery space. Furthermore, the siting of the new building, and the access into it from the parking, will correct the tendency of most visitors to enter the museum’s original building by what Kahn considered the back entrance, directing them naturally to the front entrance in the west facade.

Subtly echoing Kahn’s building in height, scale and general layout, the RPBW building has a more open, transparent character.

Light, discreet (half the footprint hidden underground), yet with its own character, setting up a dialogue between old and new. The new building consists of two connected structures.

The front section, facing the west façade of Kahn’s building across landscaped grounds, has a three-part façade, referencing the activities inside.

At its centre a lightweight, transparent, glazed section serves as the new museum entrance.

On either side, behind pale concrete walls are two gallery spaces for temporary exhibitions.

A colonnade of square concrete columns wraps around the sides of the building, supporting solid wooden beams and the overhanging eaves of the glass roof, providing shade for the glazed facades facing north and south.

In the galleries, a sophisticated roof system layers stretched fabric, the wooden beams, glass, aluminium louvers (and photovoltaic cells), to create a controlled day-lit environment.

This can be supplemented by lighting hidden behind the scrim fabric.

A glazed passageway leads into the building’s second structure.

Hidden under a turf, insulating roof are a third gallery for light-sensitive works, an auditorium and museum education facilities.

Glass, concrete, and wood are the predominant materials used in the new building, echoing those used in the original.

Views through the new building to the landscape and Kahn building beyond emphasise the key motifs of transparency and openness.

The new facility will be highly energy efficient, requiring only one fourth of the energy consumed by the Kahn building.

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Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum appeared first on Dezeen.

News: architecture firm Snøhetta has unveiled the design for a new staircase linking the existing San Francisco Museum of Modern Art with the 21,000 square-metre extension currently under construction.

The terrazzo stairs will lead visitors from the Hass Atrium of the old San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) building to the first floor of the Snøhetta-designed extension, which is scheduled to open in early 2016. It will be positioned directly beneath a large circular skylight designed by Mario Botta, the architect of the original building.

“We have imagined a stair that feels at home in Botta’s atrium, yet introduces the visitor to the language of the new spaces, creating a powerful overlap moment between the two worlds,” said Snøhetta principal Craig Dykers.

He continued: “It bridges the current and future buildings, and extends the existing design vocabulary, while foreshadowing that of the new Snøhetta addition. Most importantly, the new stair serves the next stage in the trajectory of the museum, which is about reaching out, embracing a wider public and becoming more extroverted.”

The cantilevered body of the structure will be made from wood and will feature a clear glass balustrade.

“While grand in dimensions, the stair’s impressive cantilevered construction gives it a very modest footprint,” said Dykers. “Its atypically low walls make it feel smaller than it is, which gives the atrium a new, open, airy, character that looks to SFMOMA’s future.”

Snøhetta broke ground on the SFMOMA extension earlier this year. Once open it will double the gallery’s exhibition and education space, creating 12,000 square-metres of indoor and outdoor galleries.

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San Francisco Museum of Modern Art appeared first on Dezeen.

The industrial materials used to construct this church in Seville, Spain, make it look more like an edge-of-town manufacturing plant than a place for worship (+ slideshow).

Spanish-Kuwaiti firm AGi architects designed the church for an area built in the last 15 years on the outskirts of the city, which required a new church as well as a place for community activities.

The different planes that form the roof feature apertures that allow light to reach the interior and help to distinguish the various interior spaces, which perform different liturgical functions. “One of these folds steeps up to become the bell tower, though no bells have been installed due to the economic situation,” the architects told Dezeen.

“The shape of the building relates to its context through the idea of unfolding a cover that creates a place for meeting and fraternisation, in contrast with the rigid look of the dwelling buildings where the individualised everyday life takes place,” the architects said.

The church adjoins a large courtyard that connects it to the existing facilities of a community parish centre, and its industrial aesthetic reflects the contemporary nature of its surroundings.

The stone-tiled courtyard that provides a meeting space for community activities extends into the building’s interior and a series of doors can be opened to unite the two spaces.

The architects described the tiled floor as “a stone carpet that is unfolded to enter the main space of the church in an arrangement that facilitates the participation of the entire assembly in the liturgy.”

Two smaller courtyards connected to the spaces containing the baptismal font, the penitential chapel and sacristy are used to host activities including markets, cinema screenings, religious teaching classes and as a place for contemplation.

Budgetary restraints led the architects to specify simple, economical materials, including the corrugated steel sheet covering the roof, false ceilings and partitions made of gypsum board, and concrete blocks used for the outer shell.

“White plaster finish links with more traditional architectures while the sheet of the roof is a technical solution that makes a reference to present, the period in which this urban development was carried out,” the architects added.

Structural girders form a cross at the church’s entrance, which has “an open shape that recalls traditional religious architecture”.

The angular aesthetic of the walls and roof is echoed in the shape of the wood and stone pulpit.

Photography is by Miguel de Guzmán.

Here are some more details from AGi architects:

La Ascensión del Señor Church

This building proposed by AGi architects means the completion of the Parish Center and its empowerment as focus of community activity for the neighborhood. The project aims at strengthening the Parish Center as a meeting and fraternization place, in order to develop spiritual and welfare tasks. It has been designed by economical savings and sustainability premises, simple construction techniques and materials, while endowing the district with an image and sign of identity.

The spatial scheme of the building is structured through three different qualifying voids: the large central courtyard that belongs to the first phase of the Parish Center, which now articulates the relationships between worship spaces and the rest of facilities. Its stone surface is prolonged inwards to enter the main space of the church and, bending towards the walls, creates a huge vessel that houses the congregation of believers. There are other two smaller scale courtyards, one of them linked to the area of the baptismal font, the other to the penitential chapel and sacristy.

Due to security reasons, the nature of shelter and interaction inherent to the project are only revealed to the outside in the main entrance that plays a relevant role as an open attraction space to welcome and invite users inside.

The shape of the roof, which unfolds freely to cover the assembly space by joining various inclined planes, allows the introduction of natural light inside, to achieve a clear qualification of the different areas needed to comply with liturgy requirements.

According to AGi architects’ team, “this church is very close to the community, reaching the transcendental through the existing social problems and needs. Our goal has been to open the space for community use, making it more human”.

Project Name: La Ascensión del Señor Church
Type: Religious | 1,150 sqm | Competition – First prize
Location: Seville, Spain
Date: 2010-2013
Client: Archdiocese of Seville
Cost: Confidential

Design Team:
Joaquín Pérez-Goicoechea
Nasser B. Abulhasan
Salvador Cejudo

Architectural team:
Daniel Muñoz
Gwenola Kergall
Bruno Gomes
Stefania Rendinelli
Javier Alonso
Daniel Bas

Consultants:
Singe K, Ingenieros Consultores, S.L
Javier Drake Canela

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looks more like a factory than a church appeared first on Dezeen.