The main objective of the proposed project is to combine architectural quality, an innovative model of the museum typology and an appropriate and original response to the demands of the functional program.
The Bauhaus, born in a small town in the german province, owes its worldwide spread to its radically innovative ideas in the field of didactic work, architecture, design, and more generally of the interdisciplinary nature of his teachings: this innovative spirit has guided us in the design.
Currently, in the iperconsumo museums, although it is clear and tangible the architects’ signature strength, a growing role in decision-making seems to be covered by the curators and by those who hold institutional roles: they instruct the real museum’s agendas, decide its architectural features, quality of space, incidence in the urban context and of course its cultural program.
Caught in the grips between economic needs and political strategies, new museums tend to exaggerate their architectural output, oscillating frequently from neutral and indifferent boxes to egomonsters buildings. Within this ambivalence, the quality that is often lacking, but that is crucial for a new conception museum, is the exhibition space’s capability to be a place where the cultural production can be experienced and where it can critically be re-elaborated. The initial goal of Gropius in Weimar was to reduce up to eliminate the distances between arts and crafts, and more generally, between artists and craftsmen. In the same way, our proposal aims to overcome differences, to bring to an unitary discourse the relations city- building, indoor- outdoor spaces, distribution- functional program, technological solution- aesthetic output, collection- visitor, etc...
We see the museum of the Bauhaus as an opportunity for integration not only between different cultures and disciplines, but also among the building’s rooms and the city’s rooms.
The initial step was to imagine the usage and spatial program provided by the brief as a sort of ruled paper, a map, from which to generate the spaces of the museum. We considered the areas of each environment and we turned them into a square, simple and elementary geometric form but also compositionally fruitful, in every sense. So we assembled this abacus of squares to obtain a unitary configuration, a large rectangle with sides 100x50 m. It contains all the functional families, with the prescribed degrees of proximity, adjacency and influence. The building candidates itself primarily as a unified and recognizable presence, simple but with an internal controlled complexity. An easily identifiable urban fact. The spaces’ aggregation was conducted so that the out-and-out distibution factor was reduced almost to zero. In this concept lies the proposal’s typological innovation: there are no hallways, stairs, ramps, lifts; all the environments-squares share their sides with other environments that may be similar (definitely in shape), but may vary in the use, in the proportions, in the tectonic nature, in light or exposition.
It’s a rational, logic assembly, but extremely open-use and flexible, rigorous but lively. The building, therefore, is arranged on a single level.
The technological solution proposed is a key feature of the project: the building mediate its relationship with the city and at the same time the relations among its environments, through the use, extremely variable, of vertically
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sliding elements that we will call shutters.
They are arranged along all the outer sides; in this way the relationship with the city and with the park may be adjustable, from a fully closed condition to a fully open one, passing through numerous intermediate variants. This is important both for the exhibition space, which can be artificially lit but on occasion can receive natural light, both for spaces like the cafeteria, the workshops, the offices that now and then can expand, going to occupy the adjacent outdoor spaces, sharing it with the park. This changing nature of the building is proposed again in the exhibition spaces, in which the same shutter device, adjustable according to potentially endless variants, arranges itself along the several squared-topoi sides. We intend to tie indissolubly the functional program, the technological choices and the architectural quality of the building.
In this way, architecture and exhibition space (and why not, curatorial choices) establish an essential dialogue that the visitor can reread experiencing the museum and his collection. We are looking for the opportunity to understand in one glance, being inside the museum, the bearing structure, the exhibition concept, the light, the
objects ‘s value within the collection, the relationship with the city. But also to be isolated in a relationship face to face with the work’s atmosphere, if the exhibition project foresees it.
A museum experience that can be conducted both synoptically and gradually, depending on the curatorial needs. So the museum can get to serve the city and the collection it houses, it can be a changeable interface but with a strong identity. The museum is wide-open, just like the Bauhaus.
The pathways in the park are well marked and reduced to a few simple gestures; they depart from Friederichstraße and through the trees arrive at the main entrace, stressed by a sculpture (similar to those laid out in the park), which is also engaged in the volume porch of the museum. Here outdoor spaces literally connect to the internal ones. The goal is to guide the visitor on a culturally stimulating walk, from the park to the museum and then back.
The office entrance and the logistic ones are separeted from the main entrance, a car access in provided alongside Kavalierstraße.
