Young architecture office, MACA Estudio, based in Madrid, Spain, shared with us their proposal for the Serlachius Museum Gösta Extension design competition. Their proposal plans to solve all the functional requirements of a museum, making the most of the circulations, the sustainability and integration of the building in its environment and at the same time creating a recognizable icon, a representative building worthy of the importance of this museum located in Mäntäa, Finland. More images and architects’ description after the break.
The formal and constructive references in the design comes from the environment, native materials, the landscape, and the scale of the existing buildings. The chosen site respects practically all the existing woodland, minimizing the number of trees to be eliminated within the possibilities that allow the construction of a building on this scale and functional complexity.
We will join together the principal spaces, “compacting” the building and maintaining the fragmented scale which we are looking for and improving the routes. The use of the same formal and volumetric language in all the pieces together results in that the intervention is carried out in a uniform way, without having buildings with different characteristics for each use. We think it isn’t only the exhibition space which is important, but there are also other protagonists which we intend to value and to treat them in a fair and uniform way.
This distribution of programmatic “strips” which slide among each other also make up the exterior spaces, creating two spaces or “squares” towards the entrance road: one for loading and unloading the works of art for the expositions, with large doors towards the exposition rooms and storerooms and another next to the existing building . Exterior spaces will be created towards the lake, such as the restaurant terrace.
In spite of the variety of programs, we have decided on an uniform intervention which allows us to build a single, recognizable building. The same architectural quality will be given to the programs for public use, visitors and spaces for the workers while adapting heights, proportions and the uses will be based on the requirement of the programs.
Architect: MACA Estudio Location: Mäntäa, Finland Team: Christian Alvarez, Jorge Garrudo, Tomás Suarez Client: Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation Project Area: 4.700 m2
