Museums and Libraries: The Latest Architecture and News

Nearly a year-and-a-half since the announcement of their selection, BIG has unveiled plans for a massive, 20-year-long overhaul for the Smithsonian’s southern campus in the center of Washington DC. With an overarching goal to unite the site by dissolving the notable impediments and discontinuous pathways that plague the area, BIG plans to also expand visitor, education and gallery spaces, while updating aging and inefficient building systems.

"Where today each museum is almost like a separate entity, in the future, it’s going to be a much more open, intuitive and inviting campus to meander around," Bjarke Ingels explained.

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The Israeli National Library has released images of Herzog & de Meuron’s design for the library’s new home in Jerusalem. The six-story building, awarded to the Swiss practice over five others following an extensive interview process conducted last year, will be built by 2019 on a prominent site at the base of the Knesset building and adjacent to the Israel Museum, Science Museum and Hebrew University.

More image and information about the new library, after the break.

An international jury behind Budapest’s new National Gallery has launched a second and invited competition for a select few of the industry’s best after the first, open competition lead to “disappointing” results. Jean Nouvel, David Chipperfield, Mecanoo, Nieto Sobejano, Renzo Piano, SANAA and Snøhetta have been asked to submit proposals for a 5-building museum complex on the edge of Városliget, one of the city’s main parks. It will house the new National Gallery, the Ludwig Museum, an ethnography museum, architecture museum and photography museum.

The competition, known as the Liget Project, is being directed by jury members Wim Pijbes, the director of the Rijksmuseum, and Henri Loyrette, former director of the Louvre in Paris.

A team of architects from Rome have been announced as winners of CTRL+SPACE’s ideas competition for a digital arts museum in central Madrid. The competition challenged teams to envision a 21st-century contemporary arts museum that embodies technology as an “integrated medium of work” and questions the meaning of “public access.”

The winning proposals, after the break.

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Following a national search, the National Medal of Honor Foundation has selected Safdie Architects to design its new museum and education center at Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Safdie was selected for their “extensive experience with cultural projects and national monuments across the U.S. and abroad.” The National Medal of Honor Museum will bring the stories of the Medal of Honor recipients to life for visitors.

The Medal of Honor was created in 1861 and is the nation’s highest military honor. It is awarded by the President of the United States on behalf of the United States Congress for valor in combat. The Museum is the first part of a multi-phase development of the site on the eastern shore of Charleston Harbor and will become an iconic destination in the region.

According to the BBC, Frank Gehry’s Biomuseo in Panama City, Steven Holl’s Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing, and BIG’s Danish National Maritime Museum in Helsingør are among the top eight greatest museums recently completed. Do you agree? Let us know which recently completed museums tops your list in the comment section after the break and review the BBC’s complete selection here.

Barack Obama still has two years left in his presidency, but speculative planning for his Presidential Library has already begun for each of the four possible final locations. Just as the election of President Obama broke down historical precedents for who could hold office, could the design of his dedication library represent an architectural shift from previous libraries? This article by Lilah Raptopoulos from The Guardian presents four unofficial visions for the design of the new library, each of them from award-winning architects. Their bold design sketches expand our perceptions of what a presidential library could be, and explore new ways in which these libraries could serve their communities. See all four designs and read the full article from The Guardian entitled, “Obama's presidential library: four radical visions of the future from top architects.”

Fundamental has shared with us their vision for the House of Hungarian Music, as part of the Liget Budapest Competition. Inspired by the Neo-Baroque and Neo-Gothic spires of the park’s monuments which surrounding it, the modest house features a folded, white canopy rooftop which illuminates its surroundings and provides natural light deep into its interiors.

More on Fundamental's proposal, after the break.

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In an article for the Financial Times, Edwin Heathcote asks "what are design museums actually for?" Noting that we are living through a "boom time" for the typology, Heathcote argues that when we are overwhelmed by design in our day to day lives, what will fill these spaces? London's Victoria & Albert Museum sprouted from the legacy of the 1850 Great Exhibition, where the concept of a design museum originated, as an attempt to "display the fruits of Britain’s industrial revolution." Ironically in the very same museum in 2013, curator Kieran Long acquired a print of the world's first 3D printed gun for the permanent collection. Will the ubiquity of 'design' soon negate the need for dedicated spaces? Read Heathcote's conclusions in full here.

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Videos

Take a tour inside ALA Architect’s Helsinki Central Library with a new animation and set of images revealing the project’s spacious interiors. The project, which was awarded to ALA through an international competition, boasts a unique set of programs, such as a ground floor cinema, second story sauna, “Nerd Attic” and dreamy “Book Heaven” that is topped with a cloud-like undulating roof and includes a distinctive outdoor “Citizens’ Balcony.”

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The Barack Obama Foundation has listed four potential sites for Obama’s presidential library and museum: Columbia University, the University of Hawaii, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the Universities considered were selected for demonstrating the ability to develop a strong vision and design a library that could enhance the local economy. Each institution will now work towards refining their ideas and will submit formal proposals by December.

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw has announced that Thomas Phifer and Partners will be designing their new gallery space, after winning a competition against eleven other selected practices. The new museum, the largest cultural project in recent Polish history, will also house the TR Warsawa Theatre. The proposal consists of two separate buildings housing the theater and museum, joined by a common forum that will serve both as entrance and public multi-use space.

For an article featured in Blueprint Herbert Wright examines Riga's new National Library of Latvia, completed by 89-year-old Gunārs Birkerts this month. Located in one of Latvia's most historic urban settings, the library - locally known as the "Castle of Light" - challenges the city's recent history of Soviet public architecture with a contemporary, if not as equally monumental, cultural edifice. Initially conceived in 1988 now, over twenty five years later, the structure stands as a €163million testament to Latvia's rich academic and public cultural heritage. Earlier this year, "14,000 Latvians formed a 2km human chain to pass books from the old to new libraries." Wright's exploration of this seminal building on Birkert's œuvre is complemented by Janis Dripe's excellent photographic studies of what is certain to be one of the most important Eastern European buildings of this decade.

BIG's LEGO House is now under construction, following a one of a kind foundation laying ceremony featuring - what else - supersized lego bricks. Bjarke Ingels himself was in attendance to lay one of the foundation bricks. Constructed in LEGO's hometown of Billund, Denmark, the LEGO House will be a 12,000 square metre "hands-on minds-on experience centre."

More on the LEGO House, and the foundation laying ceremony, after the break

London's Science Museum has announced Wilkinson Eyre as the winner of its competition to design new medical galleries. Winning the project over a shortlist of six other architects - including Caruso St John, Amanda Levete Architects and Haworth Tompkins - Wilkinson Eyre's £24 million galleries will occupy 3,000 square metres on the museum's first floor, almost doubling the size of the museum's existing galleries.

More on the Science Museum's transformation after the break

In an article for the New York Times Rachel Donadio examines Masterworks vs. the Masses. From the Louvre in Paris to London's British Museum, Florence's Uffizi to the Vatican Museums, the increasing surge of visitors to these international cultural nodes "has turned many museums into crowded, sauna-like spaces." Balancing everyone's right to be "nourished" by cultural experiences with protecting and preserving the works of art in question is a very real problem. According to Donadio, "even when the art is secure, the experience can become irksome." With some museums seeing annual visitors of up to 6.7 million visitors (British Museum), addressing the issues faced by institutions that are a victim of their own success is becoming more and more pressing. Read the article in full here.

Sited in the city of Zhuhai, China, this museum by Ábalos + Sentkiewicz Arquitectos seeks to combine the opposing ideas of a festive, airy aesthetic with the need for a protected and enclosed space to showcase artwork. To that end, they have created a structure that resembles a landscape with sculptural tree-like forms emerging from publicly accessible courtyards. These “trees”, while an important aspect of the building’s visual identity, also play a major role in the climate control of the museum.