Alvar Aalto Museo

Project Description

The Site has allowed to work with a specific topography and the important legacy of two Alvar Aalto’s buildings. The renovated surrounding landscape due to significant urban transformations demands a new level of connectivity and relations yet the two museums need a continuity permitting an extensive use and new programs. Light and change of season strongly influence the use and the perception of the space, becoming fully incorporated in the architectural process.

The Program is the chance to build a sequence of experiences forming a continuous circuit that completes different parts of the existing museums and extends to the landscape defining a renovated dialogue with it. Instead of a typical shopping experience we propose a total integration of the program with the spaces by means of programmatic areas that display the products in different ways activating new uses and paths connected to the museums and its flows; rethinking the museum shop like an attractor and an connector to the neighbourhood.

The Building improves the link between the museums’ complex and the city, and the museums themselves. Autonomous yet connected, it’s conceived as an open spiral made of accurate proportioned areas, horizontal planes and ramps-stairs that generate a twist, a dynamic moment which activates the pre-existences; it enhances the use of outdoor spaces at the roof terrace level and the garden’s. It’s perceived as a compact and multifaceted volume precisely grafted, thus improving and assuring all the existing accesses. A clear corrugated glass covers all its faces allowing a direct dialog with the context, blurring and absorbing it. The vision from outside results sharp and unexpected at the same time; a complete match between inside and outside is realized.

Project Details:

Category: Museum
Status: Competition “An international architectural competition for an extension between the Alvar Aalto Museum and the Museum of Central Finland”
Location: Jyväskylä Ruusupuisto, Finland
Owner: Alvar Aalto Museum
Site: The Alvar Aalto Museum building in Jyväskylä houses a specialist museum of architecture and design, which is a national and international centre for information on Aalto.
Area: 294 m2

Architect: MAR office
Team: Renato Juarez Corso, Paola Mongiu
with Daniele Bonetti, Federico Bettazzi, Giovanni Casalini

Collaborators:
Visualization:
Outside view: Cristian Chierici, Philip Clemens
Inside views: Gabriele Boretti