Kunstmuseum Extension / Christ & Gantenbein
© Christ & Gantenbein
Swiss architects Christ & Gantenbein placed first among tough competitors, such as the five Pritzker laureates (Peter Zumthor, Zaha Hadid, Rafael Moneo, Tadao Ando and Jean Nouvel) in the competition to design an extension for the Kunstmuseum. Thanks to a generous donation to the Canton of Basel-Stadt, the Basel Kunstmuseum was able to hold a competition to expand the museum to an adjacent lot. Christ & Gantenbein’s awarded design was defined as a “contemporary brother” of the 1930’s Kunstmuseum.
More about the awarded winning design after the break.
© Christ & Gantenbein
The building’s angled form gives reference to the historical former buildings of the “Burghof” and creates the front building between St. Alban Vorstadt and Dufourstrasse. Yet, a contemporary element is splashed across the front of the brick façade to create an image for the newer building. This “digital art magazine” is a frieze made out of light emitting diodes.
© Christ & Gantenbein
The openings of the facade are arranged to give scale and proportion to the building structure. The closed wall of the top floor where the special shows are taking place, the upright windows of the first floor and the pragmatically placed openings in the ground level mark the vertical organization of the building.
Model © Christ & Gantenbein
The direct entry to the new building facing the street is formed by the extension of the existing arcades of the Kunstmuseum and is marked by the drawn-in corner of the front facade. A “subterranean alley” provides views to a garden foyer of the lower courtyard.
Section © Christ & Gantenbein
To see more of Christ and Gantenbein’s work previously featured on ArchDaily.
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- Model © Christ & Gantenbein
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- Model © Christ & Gantenbein
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- Floor plans © Christ & Gantenbein
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- Section © Christ & Gantenbein
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- Elevation © Christ & Gantenbein
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hard to imagine Zumthor losing out on a project like this to anyone, but I rate these guys really highly. Looks pretty good.
That is very tough competition. Well done to them. I look forward to seeing the finished building.
Architecture: Swiss firm Christ & Gantenbein wins major competition for extension to Basel’s Kunstmuseum: http://bit.ly/8E2CmB at @archdaily
Looks pretty good
At least from the images, it looks like a Zumthor project with a much larger scale in relation to the human body than he would ever do. The exterior is reminiscent of his Kolumba project (granted a much simplified one) but retains a perforated banding breaking up the mass, treatment of openings within the mass in relation to the ground and interior space, etc.. Perhaps this is just a common Swiss idea of architecture. I would like to see the other submissions.
Christ & Gantenbein win competition 2 extend KunstMuseum Basel against Zaha, Zumpthor, Ando, Nouvel+Moneo. Impressive! http://bit.ly/4zeotw
here is a pdf file with all projects submitted:
http://www.bvd.bs.ch/schlussbericht.pdf
After months i saw this competition right now and thanks to the pdf file we got from “-says” everyone can study this quite good. The “who is Who” was involved, like zumthor, ando, sanaa, oma, gigon guyer, nouvel, oma, hadid, moneo, diener+diener, aravena, chipperfield and de moura.
The first 2 prizes by newcomers which is great.
the results were more or less a bit disappointing. especially by Zaha Hadid, Ando, Nouvel, De Moura and so on.
Most interesting for me was then the second prize by Made In with a solitaire (because this office had besides Zumthor the idea to put the main exhibition in the main building in the underground (of course with the problem to get not really a good light in it). By city planning the cube was really the best.
Why was nobody covering the courtyard from the main building with a light structure (could be already then a new huge entrance hall for the whole complex). I can not see the problems by doing so. Then there would be also the possibility to open up the ground level of this courtyard to get light to the new permanent exhibition to get much more rid of the lightning problem by Made IN. Is the open atrium space of the bongartz building so amazing? I don’t get it.
The 2 problems: the small size houses of the old town on the on one hand and the connection to the main museum, which is of course not that great in the underground, but overground very difficult to handle by city space (i would say almost impossible)
This project here is for sure a good one, but not very exciting from the outside (it looks of course a bit like kolumba, but honestly also many other projects were looking similar to a zumthor in this competition), but it will be working. Just having the problem by seeing the original 2nd prize (so not diener & diener), that this scale of building was much more better.
12:51 AM Dec 22nd
Kunstmuseum Extension / Christ & Gantenbein: © Christ & GantenbeinSwiss architects Christ & Gantenbein placed firs… http://bit.ly/71j7TB