Design Type:  Building Architecture

Designer:  Mohammed Hossain

The project initiated with several research works. As programmatic research, the proposal tended to inhibit the very need for architectural archiving from all around the world, mostly looking at the world heritage objects. This idea is also a response to the site and the ambition of the city of Murcia to become the Center for conservation, study and reflection on heritage and culture since museological heritage is both an actor and an instrument of dialogue between nations and of a common international vision aimed at cultural development. Sir John Soane’s museum was the second point of departure for the project as a research for architectural strategy. Soane’s museum (12-14 Lincoln’s Inn fields) and Bank of England were very carefully studied to understand his geometry, tartan grid plan and toy block elevations. His ground plans were similar to Tartan grid; with large squares being the open space of the rooms, the lines of the tartan being the corridors, with doors allowing access at the key linking points where these lines join. His intension was to create the “ideal room”. In this proposal, the tartan grid becomes the inhabitable/archival space and the open square is the “ideal space”. The size of this space came from the size of the footprints of the Soane Museum to make scaler relationship. The idea is to create a public space/park at ground level. Four of the Soane Museum footprints put together to get the spatial experience of “Charbagh”(persian style garden, paradise garden). This size of the “Charbagh” dictated the size of the three dimensional grid. 191 horizontal bars of the grid would inhibit the artifacts from 191 nations from around the world. The vertical bars of the grid would be the studios for the scholars to stay in and do their research. the wedge shaped space is the “urban lounge” for this musuem. All outdoor exhibition, performances would happen here. And this piece of the project is oriented towards the old historical cathedral of the city. The three dimensional grid is working here as an apparatus to organize the contents with an idea of eternal growth of the museum as the collection grows. It’s almost like a walking museum occupying the world yet providing parks and interesting public spaces at different levels.