Tampere Art Museum

Project Details

Project Description

FROM THE ARCHITECTS:

This concept for the new Tampere Art Museum is inspired by one of the best and more famous local distinctions: wood. Finland in general is the largest producer of wood in Europe and among the largest in the world; this project with its giant wooden blades would like to create an important landmark that can be easily remembered by the visitors and create a clear identity of the area.

The architectural object will be very powerful because of its simplicity but will also let perceive from the exterior its enormous interior complexity. In fact those huge walls distant only 1.2 meters from each other will let filter inside not only the light but also the view and the pedestrian’s flow that will drain freely through the lateral slits. This ambiguous transparency will be even more interesting in the dark hours when the artificial light from the inside will define the interior even more clearly crating also blades of lateral light.

The interiors complexity and porosity will be forged not only by the parallel spaces between the wooden partitions but mainly by an abstract blob volume creating a cavernous continuous space to be subtracted from the wooden blades. This cavernous space so created is a continuous interstice that will magnificently represent and spatially stimulate the fluidity of the circulation stream. From the entrance where the “flow volume” will create a visible abstract tunnel that will dynamically become very high inside the foyer and then relatively narrow in the next space of the escalator. This continuous expansion and compression of the space will guide the visitor and define the importance of each area making also an incredible spatial stimulation during the visit. The path is studied so to have always the best views on the park, the old museum and Pyynikintori square and to always encourage curiosity and create this longing to discover what’s hidden behind next partition.

Between the timber walls there will be a strip of glass letting an ethereal diffuse light both natural or artificial coming from all directions; this will also give the right quality of light to the exhibition galleries where also a system of metal grilles, blinds, and adjustable louvers will controls the sunlight streaming into galleries letting possible also total obscurity for special exhibition needs.

Those wooden walls will be partly full, made with glulam structure (glued laminated timber) and partly empty, to give lightness to the septum and to make the shaping more easy, especially in the areas where there is no structural needs. The wall will be perforated not only to give space to the interior areas but also under the slabs where mostly of the HVAC systems will pass through.

Glulam it’s for sure an incredible green choice for the low transportation and handling costs, the great insulation properties and is made of timber, that basically grows out of the ground and does not need to be mined and subjected to the high energy demand manufacturing processes that steel and cement require; and even if the space is very abstract timber will create a warm and comfortable feeling.

The vertical wall will continue also on the ground with a strip of wood separated by other strips of cement floor. This zebra pattern will be constantly present in the main interior spaces and will flow outside the building occupying the more strategic points and paths of the surrounding landscape. The main striped flow will be the one from the bus station pedestrian island to the museum entrance and each stripe will be equipped with LED system to let the ground path more significant in the night time.

The same logic of fluid paths and blob subtraction will be applied also in the rest of the masterplan design, so to have everywhere the same architectural language. From the infill volumes to the Pyynikintori square surface, everything will be perforated by those abstract volumes. In this way the square will have holes looking to the underground parking where trees plantation will be possible, and the infill facades will have suspended courts voids to let the horizontal light go more deep inside the buildings.