Role: Harvard Design Studio Project
Location: Oslo, Norway
Status: Spring 2012 (Graduate student work)
Type: National Museum
Award: Selected and featured in the annual Harvard publication & exhibition
The National Museum of Oslo is an institution of service and a national hub of knowledge for the visual arts. The new museum organises research based, innovative and enlightening exhibitions to attract visitors and new audience groups to connect to artists. The site is known as Oslo Vestbanen, or Western railway and overlooks the harbor. Existing on site are several protected buildings including the Nobel Peace center renovated by David Adjaye. The museum lies at the heart of the city close to many important cultural functions such as the City Hall.
The proposal begins with historical research and investigation to uncover the old railway infrastructure which has left no traces on site. At the same time, the systematic exploration of the architectural potential of the variable parametric surface, a conceptual vehicle chosen for its relentless abstraction and relative resistance to predictable questions of function and architectural figuration, becomes the main means of designing the museum.
Prior to 1989, the lines of the rails determined the diagonal axiality of the corner site and justified the existing building orientations. Today the site is erased of all these traces. The intervention takes on the premise to design a museum that brings back the diagonality and evokes the former lines in a completely new language. Several iterations of the Coiling Arcsine (a mathmatical coding of architectural forms) are developed and conditioned. The whole museum is one continuous coil yet it is a coil that is linearly developed and crosses the site diagonally. Unique to the coil are spaces of intersection that allow for a traversal of the linear into wider spaces and forums. Additionally, spaces between the loop become outdoor courtyards open to an outdoor exhibition space below the main level.