The young Parisian firm Planda Architecture has shared with ArchDaily their recent competition entry for the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in Manhattan. Follow after the break for additional images of this project in addition to a description from the architects.
“False Modesty” The project is located in a neighborhood of Manhattan that is in constant mutation. Many buildings have strong typologies in this area: like the New Museum by SANAA on the next block or the Blue Tower by Bernard Tschumi at the opposite end of the project.
The idea was to answer in opposition and to give it a minimal aspect by covering it with an opaque and uniform envelope. As a monolith, the building exists by expressing a clear introversion in a heterogeneous environment.
“Interior Richness” The comic book is a solitary pleasure that is shared between friends. Exhibiting these works in a museum pushes them into the public arena at a location defined as exclusive. This paradox was finally resolved by reversing the significance of the exhibition halls and galleries and to focus all the attention on libraries and archives.
The library has a spherical shape and becomes the center of a dynamic core of the whole MOCCA. The room is like a dialog bubble expressing simply the place of encounter and exchange between visitors that come to discover what we call the “9th Art”.
