2013 – Hyperborea : National Centre for Contemporary Arts _ Moscow Russia

 
Project Hyperborea : National Centre for Contemporary Arts
Program Contemporary Arts Museum
Area 46 000 m²
Place Moscow – Russia
Client Competition : New NCCA
Team Eric Cassar, Juan Jesus Alfaro Reta, Shenglin Yang with Nicolas Moulin architect

General principles The New National Centre for Contemporary Arts will be an art light-cathedral of the 21st century, a visual and musical interactive instrument into Moscow.

We basically split the program : public space vs controlled space (exhibition, administration…). They defined 2 main opposite environments : an expressive architectural landscape vs flexible environments where architecture disappear to magnify art.

 

The landscape architectural

The architectural landscape identify the museum. It is the main entrance, the connecting space, a nave of the 21st century, including oblique floors spreading in the volume and floating in the air… On both sides, steel columns are rising to the sky as the trunks of a birch forest.
Acting as a buffer space, this bioclimatic environment is a crystalline full light place protected from rain and wind with special sky cut. This adjacent territory includes entertainment areas, concert, amphitheater, cafe… It is pinched between two rows of columns including huge glass on one side and mirror on the other. It creates a special atmosphere combining reflects with light and shadows games. This architectural landscape is vertical, made of light, immateriality, sky, sound and weightlessness. It links the visitor with the essential.

The exhibition environments : pragmatic and discrete

Then, before accessing into the exhibition environments, visitors enter in ground faults, going from light to shade. The exhibition spaces are very pragmatic, flexible and easy to transform. In direct connexion with the collection zones, they can easily be adapted to the work of art presented.
A main exhibition gallery is located under the nave. There, light is artificial and controlled. The other exhibitions rooms are upstairs, similar to rectangular caves dug out of the « rock ». The « rock » is made of the service spaces.
Vertical access are located behind the huge nave mirror which is from this side an observatory mirror coming less and less transparent.
Administration spaces are both in relation with the nave, exhibition spaces and with daylight. This environment is mainly pragmatical, made of materiality, flexibility and silence.
Residence spaces are on top of the entrance in the highest volume with a large view on Moscow.

The museum in the city

The museum is visible in the distance.
By day, the limit between the sky and the building is erased. Depending on the light, it fluctuates, it glitters. Columns are able to fix snow in winter in different manner. By night, the museum becomes a huge 3 dimensional screen. It broadcasts special light or video shows visible from the surrounding building of the Khodynskoye pole.
The museum changes depending on daytime and seasons.

Some of the steel columns are structural and others are musical such as organ. The building can sing in Moscow 5 minutes a day or during special events. The art museum is a city scale visual and musical instrument which can be controlled by artists or by computer dealing with interactivity.

Made of different environments, we express the desire to combine classical style, tradition and avant-garde, integrating new technologies through sustainability.