Elysee and MUDAC by Aires Mateus

One Museum, two museums, one space.
Two solid volumes confine one space.

One empty space that dilates a compresses.
One space always in contact with the exterior.

One space of arrival, of passage, of break,
A covered place that gives access to both museums.

Two concrete volumes. In a geometric curling, they get closer, they touch each other, they detach. From the sky or through the floor, they find their light, subtle, selected. Between them, the empty space is floating. L’Elysée (Cantonal Museum of Photography) draws the floor, the MUDAC (Museum of Design and Contemporary Applied Art) the roof.

Two museums and one empty space form a prismatic volume, detached by a peripheral void from the other services. Absorbing the limits of the site, this background element frees the space it needs around the Museum, to find it’s own light and to define the main volume.

One Museum, two museums, is the starting point. The idea that each entity is characterized by a light and a space. The idea that the importance of the container isn’t more than the importance of protecting what it contains. Source by Aires Mateus.

• Location: Lausanne, Suiça, Switzerland
• Architects: Aires Mateus
• Project Leader: Francisco Caseiro
• Colaborators: Daniel Lopez, Bernardo Sousa, Luz Jimenez, Christophe Gourdier, Nicole Addati, Andrea Auerbach, Diogo Castro Guimaraes, Leonardo Marchesi, Vega Solaz Soler
• Engineer: AFA Consult
• Client: Lausanne – Pôle Muséal
• Area: 5960 Sqm
• Builting Area: 14500 Sqm
• Year: 2015 – 2017
• Date of Construction: 2017 – 2020
• Images: Courtesy of Aires Mateus