GH-6760305098
CONTINUOUS GUGGENHEIM
A THEATER OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION
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CONTINUOUS GUGGENHEIM
GH-6760305098
SYSTEMS DIAGRAM
COMPONENTS
COLLECTION
UNITS
A THEATER OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION
I
If the intention to build a Guggenheim museum in Helsinki is to exhibit
‘artistic process... connect the public with artists and their practices’, this
is perhaps the key to an exemplary XXI century museum. By creating this
‘laboratory for visual culture’ the program is no longer just the exhibition
of art—mostly artistic objects—but, more importantly, the exposition of
the production of art itself.
If the artist—producer—, the performance of production, and the
supposed outcome are altogether exposed in the museum, in such a
condition the museum is no longer just a mere showcase of perfectly
curated artistic outcomes/objects, but a theater of cultural production.
One of the constant conditions of artistic productions today is the
precarious and nomadic life of artists. That, along with widening up the
idea of ‘artistic work’ during the XX and XXI century result into a blurred
edge between artistic life, artistic production process, and artistic
outcome—artwork—to an extent that we believe the three constantly
collapse into one unsharp entity.
On the other hand, the growth of mega institutions, museums, galleries,
etc during the XX century and until today with the aim to support artistic
processes and art scenes in different countries, has created an extreme
condition that simply feeds into the same—growing—precarious mode
of artistic life.
Here, in designing for the “next” Guggenheim Museum of the world,
seems to be a legible point to rethink this whole mechanism.
Design pedagogy, like the art pedagogy in the XIX and XX century, seems
to be the intention of the museums of XXI century. Guggenheim Helsinki
in many ways suggests a tipping point. First, in the current trends in
design pedagogy, and more importantly second, in how art and artistic
processes are perceived and also practiced today.
COPIED ELEMENTS
Work/live units for artist/designer recidencies.
Each work/Live units are
3mx3m in plan and act as duplex studios.
Common infrastructure like
kitchen, shower and restrooms
are provided at regular intervals. The units are open for
public viewing.
II
The plinth is treated as the stage for ‘performance of art production’. The
performance field spreads across the site from within the box building.
The entire site becomes a large field of performances/exposition spaces.
Performance takes place within and between various systems: grid, walls,
living units, and frames. The space can range from a stage, a pavilion, a
small room, or simply a large bare site for various activities. Regarding
rapid changes happening in modes of artistic production, the museum
here leaves the majority of its space undetermined, while enclosed, to
accommodate all possible performance activities.
This—undetermined—open space can be the space of exposition,
working, living, coexistence, or collectivity.
III
The project does not propose an espectacular shape, it is a box with a
rigorous grid. The grid as a concept and a condition; condition of continuity,
of unlimited spreading out, of repetition, and of non-difference.
On the other hand, within the unlimited inclusive system of the grid,
there are walls: limitations. These walls create limits and enclosures.
Walls that enclose fragments from past Guggenheims—Frames—and
walls that enclose the whole plinth—containing all living/working units
for artists. These thick inhabited walls house activities from retail shops,
to offices, to cafes, security offices.
While the copied Guggenheim buildings within the—inhabited—walls of
their Frames sit on the continuous grid of the plinth, and the large number
of small living/working enclose them all as an outer wall, all the space
in between them is free. It craves for new events and activities. This
space is territorialized according to arrangement of objects: furnitures
and artworks. While the copied monumental old Guggenheim buildings
are disconnected from their history and context, the open space is
continuous and open for all activities to take place and all people to
inhabit.
Work/Live
Duplex
Kitchen
Bath
Venice
The sculpture court from
Peggy Guggenheim collection here becomes the
place for art collection and
storing.
The spaces within building
and the frame are used for
related office spaces.
EXHIBITION
Dine
Toilet
New York
The Ramped gallery and
the atrium from Solomon
R Guggneheim Musuem
becomes the exhibition
space.
EVENTS
The auditorium from Guggenheim Bilbao is used the
space for public events and
programs.
FRAME
The frames frame the copied
elements from various Guggenheim museums.
They also house most of the
administrative and official programs mentioned in the design
brief.
Bilbao
Las Vegas
Ground Floor Plan 1:350
Façade 1:750
ENTRANCE
The rotating display panels
from Las Vegas become
the entrance for the New
Museum in Helsinki.
GH-6760305098
Second Floor Plan 1:350
Third Floor Plan 1:350
Longitudinal Façade 1:250
Longitudinal Section 1:250
Transversal Site Section 1:250
GH-6760305098
IV
The structure is conceived as a succession of structural wooden frames.
It is modulated in a 3x3 grid, just as all other aspects of the museum. The
beams and columns are made up of two laminated wood boards, 20cm
thick by 3m high. The structure works as a vierendeel beam, which is
made up from the sum of laminated boards. The assembly of one beam
with the other is achieved through a stainless steel joint. The columns
are also made from laminated wood planks 20cm x 3m by 13.6m high.
The planks are reinforced horizontally and these reinforcements serving
as the structure for the artist’s units.
V
The project uses repetition in all its scales. As the main compositional
tool, the project uses a grid of 3m x 3m—which is also the size of the living
units—that allows the later repetition of all its systems and components.
The project is an assemblage of various components, firstly, the big
box, the living units, the frames, and the copied fragments of existing
Guggenheim museum building. But in detail, it is an assemblage of the
structural system, the units, the frames, the—framed—copied elements
from preceding Guggenheims, the facade, the details, the plinth and the
roof.
At the same time the assemblage creates a condition of ‘building within
building’ or frames within frames. The main structure is constructed with
laminated wooden columns with 3m space in between that define the
length and the horizontal space of the buildings interior, these columns
are arranged only along the longer sides of the building. A 3mx3m grid
of wooden beams define the volume and hence its interiority. The roof
is rather a humble row of gabled glass planes to allow natural light
throughout the enclosed space. Further, the work/live artist/creative/
producer’s residence units are placed in the space within the columns.
Within this gigantic volume four reinforced concrete square frames
are arranged to further define the exhibition spaces in between them.
Within these concrete frames the copied components from preceding
Guggenheim are placed.
VI
Architecture is reified by repeating itself. The project explores the notion
of copy, repetition in a broad sense, and how repetition, in itself, is the
production of the new, what Gilles Deleuze refers to as the production
of a new difference, repetition but with difference. The project criticizes
the myth of originality, the unethical view against copying and derivative
works, and frees from the innovation imperative surrounding the practice.
Arguing that there is a potential for the production of architecture, by
transforming our mimetic desire into an operative and projective tool for
architectural production.
The project then repeats specific elements from previous Guggenheim’s
Museums, taking elements from Venice, New York, Bilbao and Las
Vegas. With the use of the grid and limits, each Guggenheim is repeated
within frames of 30x30m or 27x27m.
From Venice the project repeats and transforms the main building and
the sculpture garden, in Helsinki the main galleries are transformed
into office space and the sculpture garden is transformed into the main
collection storage room, a controlled storage room visible to visitors
from outside its glass walls. From New York the project repeats the
ramped gallery and the atrium, limiting the round building with a frame
of 30x3m offering space for exhibition. From Bilbao the project repeats
the auditorium, to house the space for public events and programs. And
from Las Vegas the project repeats the rotating walls, here becoming—
decontextualized—an immediate exhibition space in the entrance frame.
Structural stainless steel
square tube
8cm Laminated wood
boards x2
Stailess steel plate joint
Stainless steel bolts
VII
The Frame provides 27x27m or 30x30m spaces enclosing the copied
monumental Guggenheim buildings. These structures frame the
decontextualized Guggenheim fragments; fragments from the past,
quotes from history.
The frames themselves are inhabitable walls: they have a thickness of
3m and house program and activities of the museum.
Structure Detail
VIII
In line with turning the museum into a theatre of cultural production, and
rethinking the idea of the museum as a place for housing artistic acts
and processes instead of storing artistic objects, the project proposes a
series of small 3x3m living/working units. The units are placed in the gap
between structural elements of the outer wall of the plinth turning the
wall into an inhabitable one, and enclosing the whole interiority of the
box. These small duplex units offer space to artists—or similar cultural
producers—to work and live there temporarily, and use both the units and
the open space of the museum for their work and have the possibility to
simply expose to the city. Artists—or similar cultural producers—would
be free to use the units in the way they choose, they can be exposed
to the public viewing or not, use them individually or collectively, and
in average every 10 units share infrastructural units serving as toilets,
baths, kitchens and elevators.
The living units shape the outer wall of the museum; the precarious
artists’ units enclose the diverse activities inside the museum as a
whole, turning the living units as the index of the museum at large.
Structure Detail
ENTRANCE
Locker Rooms
Exhibition
Auditorium/ Public Events
Cafe
Art Collection
Restaurant
Shared Office
Retail
Staff Lounge
Design Store
Visitor Services
Conservation Studio
Exterior Perspective
Work/Live Duplex Units
Curatorial Office
Administrative Office
Maintenance, Storage
Entrance Façade 1:250
Unit Perspective