Museum of Middle Eastern Modern Art by UNStudio

Dutch architects UNStudio have sent us these images of a planned arts and retail complex in Dubai, UAE, to include the Museum of Middle Eastern Modern Art.

The 25,000 square metre project will house a number of museums, including the Museum of Middle Eastern Art, as well as performance areas, a hotel, and a shopping centre.

The complex will form part of Dubai’s ‘Culture Village’ with construction expected to be completed in 2011.

The following is from UNStudio:

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Museum of Middle East Modern Art, Khor Dubai, UAE, 2008

MOMEMA: first part of a new cultural hub in Dubai

Plans are in progress for a Museum of Middle East Modern Art (MOMEMA). At the basis of the Museum is the strategic vision of making the UAE a hub for multicultural understanding.

The museum will be a celebration of the importance of Khor Dubai (Dubai Creek) as a new cultural hub within Dubai as a global city. This new cultural hub, the so-called Culture Village, will be located on 40 million square feet of land in the historic district of Jadaf.

In addition to the Museum of Middle East Modern Art, this landmark project will include an amphitheatre for live performances and international cultural festivals, an exhibition hall and smaller museums displaying local and international art, as well as a shipyard for traditional dhow builders. It will also include residential, commercial and retail zones.

It is envisaged that MOMEMA will hold a variety of spaces to exhibit Arts and Culture such as exhibitions, art galleries, leasable workshop spaces, auditorium, and amphitheatre for live performances and international festivals.

In addition, MOMEMA offers a boutique hotel with 60 keys and a boutique retail promenade on the active Culture Village waterfront, as well as a high end signature restaurant on the top level, with 360 degree views of Dubai Creek.

The Museum of Middle East Modern Art was launched in June by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. UNStudio, based in The Netherlands, has been selected to design the Museum.

Ben van Berkel, the co-founder and Principal Architect of UNStudio is an experienced designer of museums and a variety of public projects.

Ben van Berkel about the Museum of Middle Eastern Modern Art

‘In MOMEMA Dubai we recognize the opportunity to create an entirely new type of museum, which consists of a vibrant urban centre, where professionals, collectors and public meet each other. In this way, MOMEMA will be a community-building institution within the city, and offer to both visitors and residents a continuously changing palette of experiences and events.’

‘The building is positioned to take full advantage of the prominent location in the Culture Village. With its Dhow-like prow rising up, the building offers panoramic views to the surroundings, and vice versa.’

‘Inside, the design of this new museum stimulates contemplation, but by other means than enforcing a restricted optical field. There are no abrupt transitions. The space (the time) you have left behind is undividedly part of the space you are in now, is part of your ecological field, is still perceptible, still surrounding you; the art contained in those spaces follows this principle. Formats, mediums, and times can be effortlessly arranged together and rearranged. There are never too many people; this museum thrives on audiences, vernissages, and spectacle. In the MOMEMA, public, event, art and business meet each other and feed on each other.’

The museum will cover an area of 25,000 square meters and is expected to be completed in January 2011.

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Posted in: Architects,Architecture,art,civil engineering,design,designs,Dubai,Museums

RODIN MUSEUM, SAMSUNG PLAZA

Located in the heart of downtown Seoul, South Korea, the Rodin Museum is situated adjacent to the South Gate, the ceremonial entrance into the old city which occupies a sacred place in Korean cultural memory.

Given its location, the project creates a contrast between the primary rectilinear buildings on the site and the new intervention. The museum’s fragmented curves reinforce the distinct character of its form: the elusive nature of the curves fold space in such a way as to make it difficult to distinguish inside from outside. Utilizing these installations as both interior and exterior conditions, this ambiguity plays with the observer’s perceptions of the urban condition. The elusive feeling of being outside even when one is enclosed and separated from the street was a primary design criterion. The project was primarily designed around two of Auguste Rodin's sculptural masterpieces - 'The Burghers of Calais' and 'The Gates of Hell'. This 25,000 square-foot museum contains galleries, offices and a bookstore.

Status: Built

Location: Seoul, KR

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Whitney Downtown Museum

Architectural Provocateurs Axis Mundi Imagine a Different Whitney Downtown

(New York, NY) September 20, 2010 - New York architects Axis Mundi have re-imagined the Whitney Downtown Museum with a self-initiated proposal that is raw and provocative, and as bold in spirit as the original Breuer building on Madison Avenue.

In the early 1960's, when Marcel Breuer received the commission for the Whitney, he asked "What should a museum look like, a museum in Manhattan? Surely it should work, it should fulfill its requirements, but what is its relationship to the New York landscape? What does it express, what is its architectural message? He stated "It is easier to say first what it should not look like. It should not look like a business or office building, nor should it look like a place of light entertainment. Its form and its material should have identity and weight. It should be an independent and self-relying unit, exposed to history, and at the same time it should transform the vitality of the street into the sincerity and profundity of art."

With an intense sculptural presence, the Axis Mundi design represents an historical extension of the Whitney's commitment to innovative architecture, much as its polygonal windows and raw surfaces pay homage to the original Breuer fenestration and its formal brutalism.

Invisible Sight Lines Organize Program

The site is located at the beginning of the High Line, at the intersection of Washington and Gansevoort Streets. Axis Mundi sought to ground the new building in a web of 'historical axes' which form and organize the program. The plan is based on a series of sight lines extending to 10th Avenue, the Empire State Building, the Whitney on Madison, and the location of the original Whitney on West 10th Street.

Galleries Suspended in a Lattice

A desire for column-free galleries led the architects to create a perimeter superstructure to contain the staircases, escalators, elevators, and mechanical rooms. This structural lattice allows the galleries to float freely, suspended like bridges, unimpeded by a typical grid structure. The lattice allows light to flood the building in unexpected and dramatic ways, heightening the visitor's perception of the artwork and the city.

Intermingling Urban Fabric

Maintaining vitality at street level and reducing the distance between the street and the art itself was an important consideration for the designers at Axis Mundi. Instead of designing a large vacant lobby, an informal intermingling of public and private space occurs on the street level plinth, creating a complex folding of the urban fabric. The plinth is populated by large-scale sculptures, an outdoor cafe bridge, an info kiosk, and a performance area. A continuous path, weaving in and out of the lattice structure, leads the visitor from the entrance ramp at the corner of Washington and Gansevoort up to the panoramic viewing deck, overlooking the Hudson River and the High Line.

John Beckmann, principal of Axis Mundi stated "We imagine the contemporary museum to be a dynamic environment - a space that is less a container and more of a conduit." 

Height: varies from 75 ft to 175 ft

Floors: 6 above (2 below)

Building Footprint: 39,000 square feet

Usable square footage: 195,000 square feet

Design Team: John Beckmann, Andy Vann, Denise Pereira and Marielle Vargas

Renderings: Viviane Liao and Andy Vann

Illustrations + diagrams: Denise Pereira and Andy Vann

© 2010 Axis Mundi 

Status: Unbuilt

Location: 838 Washington Street, New York, NY 10014

Site line diagram

Roof top sculpture garden

View from street

Entry

Gallery

From above

Exploded anoxometric

Floor plans

Site plan

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A Titanic Museum

From a seagull's perspective, it resembles the Titanic shipping company White Star Line's logo. Viewed from a fish's perspective, the building's four "hulls" soar as high as the Titanic's bow. An aluminum skin, composed of 3,000 panels, reflects the light from the water at the foot of the building. — Der Spiegel

On March 31 the Titanic Belfast, a six-story exhibition building, officially opened in Belfast. The "discovery center" is just the first phase, of a multi-million pound development which will include a mix of shops, bars, restaurants, offices, leisure facilities and residential accommodation, branded as, Titanic Quarter. Rather than consisting of a collection of artifacts, the museum makes use of speaking holograms and other exhibition methodologies to provide a more 3D, experiential mode of learning.

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Stedelijk Museum

The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam will be expanded with a concept that connects the old A.W. Weissman designed building with a new Benthem Crouwel designed one, creating a striking contrast between them. The addition will provide an additional 12000 m²

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Posted in: arc,Architecture,art,Museums

Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art / OTA+

Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art / OTA+

This building proposal for the Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art by OTA+ challenges the traditional definition of a museum and the conventional relationship between building and site. The ground floor of the building is reduced to a nominal footprint, enclosing only enough space for basic services, structure and ticketing functions. The ground plane is primarily reserved for exterior public space, including an art park, Hall of Fame, and garden walk. The bulk of the program and building mass are split by the open ground floor. Half of the building is coupled with the earth while the other half hovers in the air. The purpose is two-fold; to minimize the damaging effects of extreme local weather by harnessing environmental flows toward productive outcomes and to re-conceptualize the identity of a modern art museum. The manicured roof plane of the below ground program is pocketed with water absorbing vegetation and catchment systems, while the hovering museum above expands to form open atriums, allowing diffuse light to brighten the space and passive airflow to comfortably condition the building.

The program of the museum is interconnected. The Contemporary Museum of Art, Children’s Museum of Art and Administration are located within the floating mass. The lecture hall, parking, art resource center, library and classrooms are located below ground. The programs below ground are easily accessible and directly connected through vertical circulation tubes, providing both structural support for the floating mass above and space for movement systems, such as escalators, stairs and elevators between levels. All of the below ground programs are flooded with diffuse light passing through skylights that penetrate the landscape.

The Contemporary Museum of Art and Children’s Museum of Art are protected from harsh direct sunlight. Though the legs of the floating expanded mass open to large glazed windows, framing views of the surrounding context, the glazing is recessed and deep overhangs protect the art. Additionally, a series of large fin diffusers scatter light and wash the walls evenly. The diffusers are also equipped with sensor-driven controls that circulate fresh air throughout the space.

The positioning of the museum on the site allows for easy access regardless of how one arrives. All paths lead to the center of the site and to a lobby for each museum. The existing road is kept and further augmented to provide access to subterranean parking and the tour bus drop-off. The design of the landscape spreads across the road and bike paths, becoming a flat, patterned inlay. The visual presence of vehicular traffic fades while the meandering pedestrian pathways dominate the ground plane.

The design of the landscape includes a field of elevated berms, meandering paths, and bench seating, all of which wrap around pockets of different land patches. Some patches are filled with natural vegetation that collect rainwater that is reused to irrigate the site. Other patches are filled with sand and gravel, covering a more substantial overflow and catchment system. Finally, where program lies below, large skylights provide diffuse light into the space. By freeing the ground plane of enclosed semi-public space, the interface between the museum and the site offers a new experience of a museum; one that is open, friendly, and welcoming.

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Städel Museum’s Contemporary Wing Opens / schneider+schumacher

Städel Museum’s Contemporary Wing Opens / schneider+schumacher

The venerable 200 year old Städel Museum has just reopened after a major 3 year remodeling which, from the exterior, is a no more than a modest if not unique pokadotted lawn. Frankfurt’s hometown architecture firm schneider+schumacher used a subterranean program to provide 3,000 square meters of space for post war and contemporary art. Like massive portals the 195 circular skylights connect the underground space directly with sky creating a tension between landscape, form and light.

The new exhibition space is further exploration of a new urban topography which blends new with old in fortuitous arrangements. The addition is designed to avoid competition with the original building and subsequent wings but nearly doubles the institution’s size. The small hill inserted as the contemporary art annex’s roof and central grass courtyard softens the original building’s simple massing and restrained façade.

A large white descending staircase leads to even more white which finishes the walls, floors, and ceilings. The dominate architecture feature is the circular grid of skylights in the ceiling, providing context to the interior’s position in the surrounding environment. During daylight hours the galleries are dominated by a soft glow, ever changing throughout the day. Evening reverses the effect with the roof /courtyard illuminated from below in the dotted landscape.

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