GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, HELSINKI COMPETITION

Guggenheim Museum Helsinki Competition

Entry: GH-8746022806
Year: 2014

Eiroa Architects | e-Architects, New York, Buenos Aires
Design Lead Research: Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa
Design Team: Felicia Killiot, Peter Douglas
Renderings: Craft CG - Computer Graphic Agency
All images|Photos: ©Eiroa Architects
web: www.eiroaarchitects.com


"The Museum of Looping (topological) Paths"

The genesis of a “Museum” is a unique diagram. In this proposal, the diagram is ‘surface building’ within a building. An archetype composed by circulation within a museum and art containment. A novel relationship enfolding topology and Cartesian containment: Cartopological Space. One inhabits and experiences multiple topologies through both positive and negative spaces. The pochéd space and ‘positive and negative spaces’ of three enfolded spaces then constitute the building. The cognitive experience of the viewer provokes awareness of the possibility of a truly
multidimensional space, as opposed to a space limited by two dimensions (plan / section). This cognitive spatial relationship informs the experience of the viewer and results in a critique of the iconic image of a spectacular building. Architecture within architecture, or a building within a building, defines its topology. Architecture is thus a piece of art contained within a spatial topology.

"The Museum of Looping (topological) Paths"
Spatial Concept: the Park's Winter Garden
The relationship between “city” and “park” resists any linear solution. In a typical contextual situation, a figurative building mimics the extension of the landscape, thus proposing a landform building. In this proposal, “city” and “park” enfold into one another, critiquing each other while using each other. The building becomes an extension of the park as an enfolded internal topology: displacing the Cartesian container.

A Cartesian coordinate corner space establishes a reference, in relation to the city organization. This corner is displaced and its referential condition is surpassed by multiple interacting museum loops and spaces. The result is a three-dimensional diagram-space as the beginning of a multi-dimensional experiential space. Each coordinate (X,Y,Z) is displaced in its interior-exterior relationship, a looping space with a continuity and displacement of reference: inside-outside, a spatial flow in three coordinates.

Image
Perceived from four distinct different locations, the building’s image communicates differently to the multiple relationships the museum establishes with its context. From the waterfront, it is perceived as a clear glass box, which is deformed to establish interior-exterior continuous relationships, but shows internal organization contrasting and tensioning the abstraction of its containment.

Program
Three loops define the exhibition program. Each loop articulates multiple building types that perfectly answer the functional complexity of a museum like the Guggenheim, with space for flexibility in the arrangements and proportions of each functional requirement.  All three loops are accessible from a single entry point at the northwest corner-tower typology, but also combine into a single loop or a separate loop.  The first loop is accessible from the west side of the city, proposing a direct access to the lobby/atrium laterally through public retail. This loop defines the upper perpendicular smaller flexible galleries, visually and experientially connecting the atrium and the glass-box building envelope, relating to the bay. The second loop is accessible from the north side of the city through the centralized control access, defining the larger longitudinal galleries. The third loop is mostly vertical, defining private/service circulation of the museum. This loop provides separate controlled access at the ground level to public programs and flexible rooms, the auditorium and laboratories, while defining offices and staff services access at the opposite extreme.


Topology
The museum is a city within a city, or an environment that contains multiple environments. The idea of containment is critiqued each time there is spatial delimitation. The spatial reading of inside/outside is broken as spaces flow between city and lobby, the lobby and galleries and intermediate poched spaces. This topological space develops several poched spaces or positive-negative inversions. A single surface-envelope enfolds multiple times.

Environmental
The glass-box envelope uses natural light as passive heating: a Winter Garden for Helsinki with port and city views. A paneled system is strategically located at bottom and top of the glass box defining a passive heating system during winter months, while maximizing solar during the short days. In summer, panels open circulating air as a passive cooling system supplemented with mechanical, when required.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project Exhibited in Bugaik International Exhibition, Korea