The winners of the international competition to design Berlin's new Natural Science Museum have been announced. The brief, which called for a large scale iconic building in the heart of the German capital, offered the opportunity for architects and students to design in a city founded in the 13th century.
Understanding that natural science museums are often simply seen as places for public spectacle, the organization behind the competition wanted to ensure that the "importance of the museum's specimen collections for documenting historical and present-day patterns of biological diversity cannot be overstated."
See the winning entry, along with the runners up, after the break.
First Place: In Between Museum / Giraud Guillaume, Balalud De Saint Jean Hadrien, Laure Johan (NAS Architecture)
"The design of the Museum is supported by mix different programs related to research, education and exposure to create an interactive and interconnected space. In not designing a tall building, we have chosen to bury most of the museum and offer an open ground floor playing with the topography and featuring a cityscape."
Second Place: Wunderkammer / Lina Lagerstrom, Memia Belkaid, Emilia Jansson, Sami Aloulou, Dounia Hamdouch
"The concept is clear and manifest: a generous interior void, from which the whole collection is visible. A contemporary Wunderkammer/Cabinet de curiosités where the objects are not arranged in the classical way. The building is organized in two parts around the large void which allows for two façades, one internal and one external. The outer layer houses the work and research part of the program, with functions such as administration, library, laboratories, taxidermy workshop and activities for the public. The glazed inner layer is dedicated to the exhibition of natural objects, positioned in boxes of different sizes."
Third Place: In Between Museum / Bastien Beguier, Francois Jaubert (COMAC)
"The museum program has been divided in two, a conceptual approach that creates a public space connected to the city and an exhibition space creating an internal cavity. The plot becomes an urban space that connects the university district, the train station and the zoo, on which floats the exhibition cube. The exhibition spaces are spread out around an atrium - a modern approach to the idea of the prehistoric cave."
References: AWR Competitions