moderna museet
by mikael askergren ©
architectural competition entry by mikael askergren in the international architectural competition for a new building for "moderna museet" and "arkitekturmuseet" (the swedish national museums of modernist art, and of architecture, respectively). the site: the former navy docklands, on the island of skeppsholmen, right in the center of the nation's waterfront capital city stockholm.
this competition entry was also mikael askergren's thesis/graduation work in architecture school. mikael askergren graduated from the kth school of architecture in stockholm, sweden (receiving a master of architecture) in 1991.
from mikael askergren's description of his design concept for moderna museet:
"the permanent collections of the national museum of modern art [in stockholm, sweden] are considered to be of high and even quality, but are to a great extent kept in storage and out of sight to the public that pays for the purchases. the real center of [the proposed new building for the museum] is not the cantilevered quasi-shaver/moonshuttle-shaped waterfront wintergarden exhibition space [for temporary art shows - and for other kinds of events, like dog or cat shows, ballroom dancing, an boy scout jamborees]. instead the real center of gravity is the great gallery of the permanent collections, a more magnificent space than that of the shaver/moonshuttle: four hundred meters of continuous wall.
no windows or skylights that could leak or be inviting to burglars. no natural lighting that might damage some works of art. spatial clarity. easy and inexpensive surveillance and maintenance. with the help of an overhead travelling crane running the whole distance of the gallery, all sections of the walls and floors can be reached one great space where the collections in their entirety are made accessible to the public, without this accessibilty costing more than conventional arrangemants, since every square meter of wall and floor is used (instead of having a limited number of works of art from the permanent collections selected by a curator and presented to the public in a spacious, tastefully designed and tranquil, almost empty and therefore costly, but often ever so dull, milieu, and the rest, the major part of the collections hidden away in storage and never shown to the public). the building as catalogue, the collections as library, open for unlimited excavation. the excavator is aided in his search by, among other things, numbers on the ceiling every ten meters, which correspond to how all objects and works of art are numbered according to the chronology of the artist's oeuvres, and are placed in alphabetical order according to the artists' names, just like in the catalogue published by the museum today."
appendix 2003
the schaulager (german for "viewing depot") is the newest public art institution in basle (basel), switzerland. but not everything about the schaulager is new. the museum building itself (designed by famous swiss architects herzog & de meuron) is certainly brand new (it opened in the spring of 2003). but its "new concept" is not. the concept of the schaulager museum is to make no distinction between storage space and exhibition space. the entire collections are accessible to the public - as opposed to the more conventional museum approach of exhibiting only a small part of the collections, and keeping the major part of the collections in storage, out of sight of the public. mikael askergren's competition entry of 1990 for a new museum of modern art in stockholm, sweden, predates/outdates schaulager's concept by at least a decade.
[ http://askergren.com ]
the 1990 international architectural competion was won by spain's rafael moneo. this proposal by mikael askergren received no mention in the competition. however, mikael askergren's competition entry/thesis/graduation work was later published in an anthology of former student's graduation works from the kth school of architecture, stockholm, sweden. the anthology, entitled
web site of moderna museet: www.modernamuseet.se
web site of arkitekturmuseet: www.arkitekturmuseet.se
web site of schaulager: www.schaulager.com