Herzog & de Meuron_Tate Modern

Tate Modern is the national gallery of international modern art. Located in London, it is one of the family of four Tate galleries which display selections from the Tate Collection. Tate Modern was created in the year 2000 to display the national collection of international modern art (defined as art since 1900). 
By about 1990 it was clear that the Tate Collection had hugely outgrown the original Tate Gallery on Millbank. It was decided to create a new gallery in London to display the international modern component of the Tate Collection. An immediate problem was whether the modern art gallery should be a new building or a conversion of an existing building, if a suitable one could be found. As a result of extensive consultations, particularly with artists, it was decided to search for a building to convert. When the building that is now Tate Modern presented itself, it appeared something of a miracle. It was a former power station that had closed in 1982, so it was available. It was a very striking and distinguished building in its own right, by the architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. 
An international architectural competition was held attracting entries from practices all over the world. The final choice was Herzog and De Meuron, a relatively small and then little known Swiss firm. A key factor in this choice was that their proposal retained much of the essential character of the building.
The power station consisted of a huge turbine hall, thirty-five metres high and 152 metres long, with, parallel to it, the boiler house. The turbine hall became a dramatic entrance area, with ramped access, as well as a display space for very large sculptural projects. The boiler house became the galleries. These are on three levels running the full length of the building. The galleries are disposed in separate but linked blocks, known as suites, on either side of the central escalators. Above the original roofline of the power station Herzog and De Meuron added a two-storey glass penthouse, known as the lightbeam. The top level of this houses a café-restaurant with stunning views of the river and the City, and the lower a members room with terraces on both sides of the building, the river side one offering the same stunning views as the restaurant. The chimney was capped by a coloured light feature designed by the artist Michael Craig-Martin, known as the Swiss Light. At night, the penthouse lightbeam and the Swiss Light mark the presence of Tate Modern for many miles.


http://www.tate.org.uk/

From_Interim

Notes and thoughts from Interim;

JOURNEY THROUGH PRAGUE;

_Journey through history [the past and the present].

_Journey through the site [progression, crossing, navigate, intersect].

Creating environments for the performance and the audience to move through - cross through [LEDGES/STAIRS/RAMPS], transfer, journey through the spaces, proceed through.

INTERPLAY BETWEEN SAMLL AND LARGES SPACES; MODERN AND HISTORIC ELEMENTS;

_New elements stand for the renewal of the church and the theatrical culture.

_Weaving of dense texture of interior and exterior spaces.

Dancing in and out of: TIME / SAPCE / HISTORY / THE PAST / TIMES PAST

The journey between: TRAVEL / CROSS / PROCEED / WITHIN

[TO CROSS BETWEEN]

_Between the past and the present.

_Between the inside and the outside.

_Between the National Theatre and the Prague Crossroads.

Testing out renders so far of the interior Vectorworks model;

Front of house; view of the ledges in the arches and the main staircase

Top of large staircase; view towards the existing windows and the lighting effects they make.

Inside the large room on Level 2, high ledges that the dancers move across in front of the windows.

View of glass roof from Level 3 with the fold in the structure.

Notes for development;

Zaha Hadid_Contemporary Arts Centre

The Contemporary Arts Center, founded in 1939, was one of the first institutions dedicated to exhibiting contemporary art. The new center, which opens to the public on June 7, will be available for temporary performances, exhibitions and site-specific installations.

Zaha Hadid designed the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art museum in downtown Cincinnati, which opened in 2003. Hadid is the first woman to design a major museum in the United States.

The obvious color contrast in the Deconstructivist layered exterior continues inside with a very loose and slipping arrangement of material. The CAC rather fits into the texture of the urban downtown, with no attempt to stand above or degrade the city architecture.

The ground floor invites the young and poor, a non-elitist "urban carpet" that leads through dynamic stairways to various levels of temporary art exhibits and curves into the very fabric of the form. The circulation carves voids out of the mass of the building.

Hadid has explained that her vision was non-elitist. Thus, she wanted the lobby area of the museum to serve as a kind of public square. Visually, this point is made through the "urban carpet": the sidewalk is pulled into the building and rises to become the back wall--providing a continuity between the outside and the inside.

Nieto Sobeiano Arquitectos_Moritzburg Contemporary Art Museum

Moritzburg Contemporary Art Museum Extension, Halle, Germany. NIETO SOBEIANO ARQUITECTOS.


The design of Nieto Sobejano based on a simple yet elegant architectural idea: West and north wing of the castle are by one of skylights plastic molded, with aluminum covered roof together, which stands out as an irregular folded platform and lowers it but on the crown flat wall recedes. "Stand on the historical styles and forms from the different epochs in the Moritzburg added modernity, marked by the modern roof landscape, which moved to the language of the existing historic gabled roofs and gables and respond to signs of the new museum is. West and north wing of the Moritzburg be left in their entire extent than large spatial forms within the old buildings. The upper floors of exhibition spaces are as white boxes suspended from the roof and reached by a gallery along the Außermauern. Fill the floor levels are not full, so that there are next to them two-story Areas of overwhelming dimensions. The west wing of the castle are the Außermauern left untreated stone and keep as a historical building envelope alive the memory of the former West Ruin. With this design creates an exciting interplay of small and large, modern and historic rooms. The architectural resources of modernity remain independent and occur with the historic building into an exciting dialogue. From the galleries open up stunning views of the city, the old hall with its five towers and on Halle-Neustadt with his blocks.


The entrance to the museum is located in the northwestern corner of the courtyard. It is designed as a prefixed structure in the architectural language of the roof and covered with aluminum. Even at first glance, it stands out as you enter the courtyard as the main entrance from the many side entrances of the castle. On the ground floor of the north wing contains the lobby with box office and dressing room, a museum shop and the museum cafe with outdoor seating in the courtyard, the staircase with a lift. In the vault of the basement toilets and lockers are located. The design idea of the box returns in the cash room again, which can be separated as a segment, and in the sanitary area, which is set as a cube in the vault room of the basement. All new components have been trained in the same abstract language of form. Outside they are covered with aluminum and separated by a gap from the stock, sold inside their panel with white plasterboard walls or cement fiber board of the historic building envelope.


The architects Nieto Sobejano have presented their project in a fascinating dialogue between the existing castle and the new architecture, reminiscent of the Expressionist painting and the formal world Lyonel Feininger also includes the historic building stock as he meets with respect. West and north wing, which once housed the state rooms and living rooms of the Magdeburg archbishops are in their draft drawn back into a unit together and have something original of their monumental effect recovered. It is thus possible, the place and its varied artistic history to translate into the present. The new components of the Moritzburg stand for the renewal of the museum and symbolize its integration into the 21 Century.

Week 9_Interim Presentation

Sasha Waltz;
Precedent for site- and architecture specific interaction.

Dance is Communal;
Development of mapping between National Theatre of Prague and the Prague Crossroads.

Between the Past and the Present;
Keeping the original elements of the existing building that inform the historical past of the site.
New elements added that create conditions and environments for the dancers to perform on and act as the present.
_Contrasting materials so that the two can be easily distinguished.


Glass and steel structured roof: Removed the original roof and added a structure that allows natural light into the building and a connection to the exterior environment; where the movements made through the city of Prague can be seen from.
Extends down the front of the buildiing where the audience stands between the past and the present of the entering before entering.
Stairs; Large staircase and ledges. Stairs and ramps around the building provide multiple views of different areas.

Using Motion as a representative tool;
Extending the windows to the floor level - Dancers can move across the windows, which is seen from the interior and the exterior.

Spatial Planning_From Concept

Sketching out main architectural elements to build in Vectorworks for Interim Presentation;

Week 8_Concept Presentation

My concept is using site specific contemporary dance to make connections between the outside and the inside of the site, and creating an understanding of the past and the present for the audience to experience.


_Developed the idea of the dance being communal;
The performance will start at the National Theatre in Prague. This site is an important feature that has helped to preserve and develop the Czech language and a sense of the Czech national spirit and identity.
By following the dancers from this site to the location of the Prague Crossroads, the audience/spectators move within the environment with the dancers. This entices the audience to feel physically and emotionally invested in the piece, as well as being more aware of their role in the site and creating an understanding of the community, both the past and the present.

Sasha Waltz
Precdent for site- and architecture-specific interaction.


_Development in my brief;
This design will explore the relationship of the inside and outside, heightening the building and its surrounding environment, and allowing the community to form an experience with the past and present of the site.
By pushing the performance into the public realm, it invites passer-by to come across the performance piece and become audience members.

_Diagrammatic section of space planning;


Dividing the space into the three levels for dancers and audience to move through.
Intervention of large staircase.
Surrounding stairs to level 3.
[ENLARGING THE SPACE AND THE QUALITY OF EVENTS - view from multiple levels].
Using the windows for the dancers to move between which can be seen from the interior and the exterior.
Using glass and light to construct the roof into a beacon as a visible guide to draw the audience to and through the building.


_Feedback from interim;