Museu do Chiado

Description

The National Museum of Contemporary Art – Museu do Chiado, as we know it today, is the result of successive extensions achieved through the addition of new buildings that, over time, became available in its immediate surroundings. While this process has created an identity problem in terms of image—what, in fact, is the Museum building, and what is its nature?—such an elongated and fragmented complex, marked by entrances at opposite ends (one of them shared with the PSP Museum), as well as by long distances, winding paths and numerous unresolved level changes, could hardly escape its current condition: an extreme complexity of circulation—generally confusing and problematic, both for the public and for service and artwork transport—together with a lack of rationality and inefficient use of space. A comprehensive, overarching vision is lacking.

These, therefore, were the first major challenges faced by the competitors in the competition organised to select the project for the remodelling and extension of the Museum, beyond the necessary increase in area and the proper control of conditions for the classification, conservation and display of the works: how to reformulate and rationalise the Museum’s internal circulation? Where should the public entrance—which is also the Museum’s face—and the service and artwork entrance be located? What should be the Museum’s urban expression and the architectural language that defines it as a public identity?

The most rational solution adopted was to locate the public entrance and the artwork access at the geometric centre of the complex, thereby minimising distances and simultaneously enhancing fluid articulation between the various internal components. It was proposed to replace the demolishable building on Rua Serpa Pinto with a new one of entirely free design which, in addition to functioning as a key element of the ensemble, would incorporate the public entrance through an atrium endowed with the eloquence, scale and dignity appropriate to a National Museum. This new central body also accommodates the artwork access to storage areas and temporary exhibition spaces, directly reachable through gates, lifts and service staircases.

Simplicity and monumentality were central themes of reflection. These are qualities simultaneously required for the careful integration of this new building into the specific urban context in which it is inserted, as an aggregating element of a fragmented complex, but also because it is a National Museum. This idea of monumentality is expressed through a large, predominantly opaque volume, whose design is founded on the robustness—and a certain monumentality—of the walls and volumes of the other buildings that make up the Museum, both on Rua Capelo and on Rua Serpa Pinto—the latter designed by Wilmotte.

Through the subdivision of its vertical massing into distinct material layers, defined by the placement of friezes (lioz stone/copper) that extend from the surrounding Museum buildings, a reading of continuity between the parts is achieved, favouring the unity of the ensemble. Unity and integration—qualities that are further developed in this proposal also in the interior, where the global identity of the complex calls for an equally profound reflection, both in terms of functional circulation and in terms of visual and perceptual atmosphere.