Each project is, for an architect, an opportunity to find answers to different questions. The questions that immediately came out while designing the National Museum of World Writing, set in the green area of Central park, are the following: What is the relation between the typology and the context?
The need to ensure the visual and physical continuity between the city and the park, has suggested the archetype of the cave as the main evocative image, a space where the first forms of writing originated, a space that men conquered letting the light come in and molded throught their flows.
A site-specific design that reminds to the ancestral and sacral atmosphere of the caves through the power of the light on the surfaces and shapes, a space in which nature and artifice blend.
The design process take part from the excavation and modeling of the existing soil that, while ensuring the physical interaction between the city and the park surface, opens and shapes to allow the light and the Visitors to access and cross it.
The heart of this excavation is a public space, a large square, located at the intersection of the tracks coming from both the park and the city moving towards the museum. Along this same axis, a pedestrian bridge overlooking the square allows to fastly cross the museum, connecting more directly the city and the park.
Both the Permanent and the Special Exhibition Rooms are designed to guarantee the maximum flexibility of use depending on the different exhibition configurations and sets, to present the six exhibit themes indicated by the competition guidelines. They are spatially articulated thanks to special mobile elements that can generate different typologies of spaces and visitors circulating paths.
The superficial ground surface covering the museum indoor spaces is designed as a space that is offered to the city, a fifth façade for the surrounding high-rise building, a space where you can watch outdoor shows, where to play, enjoy time together, but also where just stay contemplating the surrounding landscape.
The rooftop is called “roofpark” and acts as a dynamic and flexible element, where an open theater and a free climbing wall take place. The project for the National Museum of World Writing draws a place dedicated to the exclusive use of the city inhabitants, a place with which they are called to interact, as they are called to interact with all the activities and spaces organized inside. A space with to interact, an “in-between” museum among the city and the park. Source by Studio Elia-Giancotti and TARI-Architects.
- Location: Incheon, Yeonsu-gu, Songdo-dong 24-8, Republic of Korea
- Architects: Studio Elia-Giancotti and TARI-Architects
- Project Team: Alfonso Giancotti , Claudia Ricciardi , Marco Tanzilli
- Collaborators: Mattia Bencistà, Valentina Sciacca, Francesco Simonin, Valerio Villanucci
- Client: Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism
- Status: Competition – Entry
- Total area: 15,650 sqm
- Parking spots: 1500 sqm
- Year: 2017
- Images; Courtesy of TARI-Architects
