{"id":39346,"date":"2014-07-07T21:01:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T19:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/vendees-historical-museum\/"},"modified":"2017-03-24T18:41:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T17:41:32","slug":"vendees-historical-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/vendees-historical-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Vend\u00e9e\u2019s historical museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

The will to dissimulate the 6000 square meters of this program in the country side landscape was written in the brief of the competition Plan01 won in September 2002. The client had clearly expressed his wish that the building\u2019s impact on the landscape had to be limited. The apparent paradox between the will to create an attractive cultural institution and the desire to dissimulate it in the landscape, disappears in front of the site\u2019s beauty: a sensitive landscape between the countryside\u2019s pattern of meadows and hedges, and the riverside. We therefore decided to finely install the program by creating an ambiguous and subtle dialog with nearby nature. Its presence is at the same time discrete and expressive, exploring in turn the themes of enshrining and of rising.<\/p>\n

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photo by St\u00e9phane Chalmeau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A floating meadow
\nHidden underneath it\u2019s landscaped roof the museum is largely open on the river. It\u2019s volume is mysterious, and it is discovered progressively by the approaching visitor, revealing generous and warm spaces. The building \u2013 all in monochrome bronze green \u2013 is enshrined in the natural geography, on the moving line were the cultivated fields meed the easily flooded banks of the Boulogne river, where the views from the lobby can be framed on the wildest part of the site. The museum\u2019s roof, designed as a fragment of landscape is the project\u2019s main feature. This roof\u2019s complex profiles required long developments through physical and computer modelings: it is made of faces whose relative angles are sufficiently marked to give enough expression to distinguish the building from the natural relief.<\/p>\n

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photo by St\u00e9phane Chalmeau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Entrance to the museum begins at the junction of two paths. Inspired by the sunken trails between the meadows and hedges (the \u201cbocage\u201d) of rural Vend\u00e9e, a footbridge crossing through the museum\u2019s two wings dramatizes the approach from the car park to the entrance; giving the visitor a sense of diving into the ground and history of Vend\u00e9e. Whereas from the bottom path linking it to the nearby memorial of the Vend\u00e9e wars the museum is perceived as a sequence of 2 pavilions punctuating a walk. The crossing through the building gives an opportunity to scenography two discovery\u2019s: the passage from the bocage\u2019s landscape to that of the river, and views from above on the large hall and the \u201cfresco\u201d which marks the entrances of each exhibition room. The green roof\u2019s movements and the underneath facets adapt themselves to the useful volumes of the spaces they cover.
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The roof\u2019s thermal inertia and its large overhangings protect the exhibition and conservation spaces from direct solar overheating. An empty shell. The program\u2019s specificity: it is a new generation museum conceived like a movie studio. The exhibition rooms (2500 sqm) are wide blind sets with technical grids ready to receive a temporary scenography. Splitting the program in two volumes and using a compact \u201cW\u201d organization for the exhibition rooms furthermore reduce the building\u2019s global impact and optimize the accesses from a central lobby and two peripheral galleries. A first space reveals itself at the bottom of the access stairway to welcome and direct visitors. Inside the museum the walls are covered by a continuous printed fabric fresco illustrating the main stages of Vend\u00e9e\u2019s history. The fresco is a long multicolored ribbon, informative and giving a contrasted answer to the rest of the building\u2019s sobriety.<\/p>\n