Charlotte von Moos + Florian Sauter
Large-scale perimeter housing, industrial buildings, as well as the big complexes of the life sciences dominate the St. Johann quarter. The new natural history museum and city archive should bring a public, institutional character into the district. Raw and archaic as the nearby silos and yet formally and compositionally sublime as the present museum at Augustinergasse, the new ensemble generates its specific physiognomy from the complex interactions of the place and the program.
The archive as the “treasure trove” of the city is placed in a robust but noble tower. Crowned by a public loggia, it opens up views over the city, whose memory it preserves. With a different structural “anatomy”, the natural history museum is nestled behind a quiet and uniform colonnade of pilasters. Hall-like spaces characterize its interior made up of a “skeletal” frame construction with hollow, bi-directional “hole-deck” ceilings. Based on an universal spatial logic guaranteeing a maximum of flexibility, the museum is shielded towards the train tracks by a buffer-wall containing the mechanical services. Its entire top floor – related in scale to the spatial landscapes of the nearby industrial warehouses – is reserved as exhibition space, which behind a few openings acts as an urban element in the evening, too. Truly a bridge between the two institutions, the formally neutral foyer surprises in its interior with a generous barrel vaulted space that offers easy visitor orientation and distribution. For reasons of coherence, red concrete is used in all parts of the project, both inside and outside. This – in analogy to the red Alsatian sandstone of the region – should ground the entire complex and underline its local significance, while at the same time permit the user to feel in each part of the project the connection with the whole. In sum, a classically upgraded engineering aesthetic should shape the spatial mood of the place and frame as a quiet background the various cultural activities.
Natural History Museum and City Archive
Invited Competition
Basel
2014
