Museum of Contemporary Art-MSU

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Project Name: Museum of Contemporary Art-MSU
Construction year: 2009
Website: www.msu.hr
Address: Av. Dubrovnic 17 , ZAGREB - Croatia

Architect(s) : Studio za arhitekturu d.o.o. (www.sza.hr)
Project Category: Cultural | Museums

Latitude: 45.7787
Longitude: 15.9817

Museum of Contemporary Art

The entire ground floor of the Museum is open to movement, conceived as an extension of the square with the main entrance, restaurant and library, each with a separate access. The glass envelope of the ground floor is not unified, but diversified, which indicates different amenities. The entrance area with the large info-desk and a hall for lesser exhibitions shows modest proportions, it is intentionally non-monumental, without pronounced spatial attractions; we experience it as juxtaposed to the powerfully articulated porch. It is obvious that the ground floor is the place of transition between public city space and museum halls. There is only an indication of two routes of movement towards the permanent and the temporary display respectively, spatially indicated by the arrangement of the beginnings of staircases. This spatial sequence is unambiguously just a preparation and a part of the scenario of movement suspense and experience of the building before entering the exhibition halls. Actually, we are still underneath the museum.

Franić formed the body of the building as a geometrically very simple solid of approximately square ground-floor plan, whose cross-section is “folded” in the form of a meander. The configuration of the exhibition space directly emerges from this cascading cross-cut, so that the museum develops in a series of linear stretches vertical to the lateral, meandering profile of the structure. The basic direction of the spaces is defined by the sequence of x-axes parallel in relation to the entrance porch, whereby their format changes with progression, i.e. translation of the floor and the ceiling within y-coordinates. These stretches show different heights and interrelations, and between them flow the terraces or the areas beneath the body of the building, so that along the y-axis exterior and interior spatial segments interchange. The reference to Julije Knifer, imposed by the form of the meander, should not be read in the literal, sense of fetishist adoption of a formal motive important for the tradition of Croatian abstract art, but in the sense that both for Knifer and Franić the rhythm of relational changes between “full” and “void”, “positive” and “negative” is important.

The body of the building is perforated by three vertical intrusions, of which two are also visible from underneath, while one skylight reaches the underground level. In its basic geometric scheme, spatial organization is simple; it is always of the same length on the x-axis, fixed through the matrix of an entirely consequential system within a square grid. In spite of pure Euclidean geometry, the manipulation with x-y-z axes is basically not founded in a logical or immediately readable spatial system, but it is rather a series of specific situations and a variation of relations inside-outside, up-down, and wall-transparency-translucency. In this progression, the first perception and the attempt at understanding the spatial configuration of the structure leaves a somewhat mystic impression, as if it were a series of individually conceived sequences that have obviously emerged from a series of interconnected geometrical operations and the same module, but we lack the feeling of entity. The Museum does not have a spatial focus on purpose, but it is designed as a spatial non-hierarchical equation, which also does not have a fixed or entirely readable trajectory. Namely the movement through the Museum can take different routes, so that the two main massive concrete stairs – one that services the permanent, the other the temporary display – are supplemented by “auxiliary” steel stairs and the escalator in the temporary display space. Such organization encourages the visitor to individually and actively investigate the exhibitions and discover his own way through different periods and media.

Contributed by ArchiTeam