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History A2

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History A2

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urvashii.m2003
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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GRONINGER MUSEUM (THE EAST PAVILION)

GRONINGEN, NETHERLANDS

GROSS FLOOR AREA: 900 sq.m


GROSS VOLUME: 4300 m. cube


The complex of the Groninger Museum is a fancy combination of forms, colors
and materials. The overall planning was done by Alessandro Mendini, based in
Milano, who invited the designers Philippe Starck and Michele De Lucchi, as
well as Coop Himmelb(l)au, to conceive the various building units. Coop
Himmelb(l)au was in charge of the East Pavilion of the museum.

The whole pavilion is a three-dimensional artwork, resting on the pedestal CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
clad by Mendini. The design aims to generate an ’open architecture‘, an
interaction between the inside and the outside, surprising the visitor with PHYSICAL MODEL Groningen is a key work for Coop
sudden glimpses to the outside world. The walls are made of steel and Himmelb(l)au. For the first time
glass to enable daylight to enter at unexpected places. The visitor can in the history of the office, the
also suddenly find himself standing on a platform above the town canal. conception of a space breaking
Paths at different levels allow the viewing of the artworks from all sides: the prison of the functionalistic
at ground level or from the gantry cutting through the exhibition area a few box into a thousand pieces was
meters above the floor. The structure is comprised of large, double-walled realized on a large scale. Thanks
steel plates, filled with hardened glass at points where they do not quite to the so-called space-arm, the
meet. The first sketch of the project, drawn by Wolf D. Prix with his eyes design of the 3D model of the
closed, was digitally enlarged to the scale of the building, and painted on pavilion was able to be digitized
the steel plates with black and red tar. and translated into plans.

”One has to imagine that it will take 100 years for


the 4 mm steel plates to rust away, but since the
drawing is done in tar it will not rust. After 100
years, it will be the Museum that is gone, and only
the sketch done in tar that remains,“ Wolf dPrix.

In order to work within the


tight budget and timeframe
given by the client, local shipbuilding methods were
used to construct the primary elements of the East
Pavilion. The steel plates, prefabricated at a shipyard
east of Groningen, arrived on site via barge their
insulation, paint and edge details already complete. This
streamlined process resulted in a very quick and
economical construction phase, and a building whose
materials and all-welded details are similar to those of a
ship

The Coop Himmelb(l)au Pavilion was designed as a blown-up sculpture on the


pedestal of the Mendini Pavilions. It overhangs this pedestal at various points.
This pavilion deviates from the classical-harmonious and symmetrical architecture of Mendini, De Lucchi
and Starck. Everything seems to lie at sixes and sevens. The colours in the pavilion are those of the
materials themselves: the grey of the concrete, the red of the steel and the black of the tar. The

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construction material consists of concrete, steel and – there where these materials do not meet – glass.
The architecture of Coop Himmelb(l)au is considered to be a typical exponent of the Deconstructivist
ASSIGNMENT movement, which opposes all architectonical Constructivist traditions regarding functional material use
and development of buildings. And that’s exactly what sets them apart: Deconstructivists aim to
URVASHI intentionally tear all traditional building elements and materials out of their normal classical coherence.
22FAP2AR015 Thus, a window can be fit into a floor and the distinction between walls and ceilings, inside and outside,
is – to a large degree – thrown overboard.
HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE
B.ARCH, 5TH SEM

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