Light as protagonist. Robert Olnick Pavilion by Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo
29/09/2023.
[NY] USA
metalocus, ANTONIO CORREDERA, JORGE MARTINEZ
metalocus, ANTONIO CORREDERA, JORGE MARTINEZ
Description of project by Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo
We want to make a very simple and sober building and at the same time very beautiful, the most beautiful in the world.
We understand that this new building must complete and complement the main MagaZZino building. To do this, it is arranged in a bar perpendicular to the first, creating a unitary enclosure between them. The new extension is removed from the main complex at the appropriate distance to resolve functional issues.
The bay will be 11 m, similar to that of the existing buildings. And the same goes for its cornice height. The agreement of layouts, measurements, and cornice lines guarantees a good relationship between the buildings.
Robert Olnick Pavilion by Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo. Photograph by Javier Callejas.
We understand that a central, important theme is the union between the current building and the new one, resolved with an avenue planned as a common access plane that, when crossing the new building, allows transparency on the ground floor as a perspective background that works very well spatially. This transparent space will be the lobby of the new building, which will also house the Bar functions.
To the left of the entrance would be the room for the Murano glass, at double height, with one or two translucent walls and the selection of glass pieces floating in the air and clearly showing their transparency. Vignelli's display cases may be on the walls of that room. It will be a very interesting space. On the upper floor of the lobby bar, you can find the Ceramics.
To the right of the lobby, the Temporary Exhibition Hall. As it is very spacious, we believe that it could be used when there are conferences as an auditorium with nice, stackable chairs.
Robert Olnick Pavilion by Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo. Photograph by William Mulvihill.
The building can end there with a suitable final patio. Or, if we see it convenient, anticipating future uses, the walls can be continued by embedding themselves in the ground and generating basements that can be colonized later.
The toilets, generous, where the stairs, as if they were kidneys of the building.
And outside, between the Museum and the new building, the Olnick Spanu Pavillion, small, 6x6x6 m or 9x9x9 m, connected through the main avenue. It will serve as a special space to receive each new work from MagaZZino, before joining it.
Robert Olnick Pavilion by Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo. Photograph by William Mulvihill.
Under the Murano area, a semi-basement is created for possible classrooms, well-lit through a simple English patio.
We believe that the solution is topographically appropriate, and we understand that the influence of the existing wetland area can be displaced with simple geotechnical means.
Alberto Campo Baeza. Born in Valladolid (1946), where his grandfather was an architect, from the age of two he lived in CADIZ where he saw the LIGHT. From his father he inherited a spirit of ANALYSIS and from his mother the determination to be an ARCHITECT.
He lives in Madrid, where he moved to study Architecture. His first professor was Alejandro de la Sota, who instilled in him the ESSENTIAL architecture that he is still trying to erect. He is a PROFESSOR at the Madrid School of Architecture, ETSAM, where he has been a tenured professor for more than 25 years.
He has taught at the ETH in Zurich and the EPFL in Lausanne as well as the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. And in Dublin and Naples, Virginia and Copenhagen. And at the BAUHAUS in Weimar and at Kansas State University. He spent a year as a research fellow at COLUMBIA University in New York in 2001 and again in 2011. He has given many lectures and has received many awards like the TORROJA for his Caja Granada building. And he was awarded the Buenos Aires Biennial 2009 for his Nursery for Benetton in Venice and his MA Museum in Granada. He has recently been nominated by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the prestigious Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize of 2010.
His works have been widely recognized. From the single family houses Casa Turégano and Casa de Blas, both in Madrid, to Casa Gaspar, Casa Asencio and Casa Guerrero in Cádiz. And the Olnick Spanu House in Garrison, New York, the Centro BIT in Inca-Mallorca, the Caja de Granada Savings Bank and the MA, the Museum of Andalusian Memory, both in Granada, and a nursery for Benetton in Venice. And Between Cathedrals in Cádiz, and just recently a building for Offices in Zamora (2012). And the construction of the new Offices for Benetton in Samara, Russia, which is about to begin.
And more than 20 editions of a BOOK with his texts “LA IDEA CONSTRUÍDA” [THE BUILT IDEA] have been published in several languages. A fourth edition of “PENSAR CON LAS MANOS”, a second compilation of his writings, has just been published. And just now “PRINCIPIA ARCHITECTONICA”, a collection of his texts written during his sabbatical year at Columbia University in New York in 2011.
He believes in Architecture as a BUILT IDEA. And he believes that the principle components of Architecture are GRAVITY that constructs SPACE and LIGHT that constructs TIME.
He has exhibited his work in the CROWN HALL by Mies at Chicago’s IIT and at the PALLADIO Basilica in Vicenza. And in the Urban Center in New York. And at the Saint Irene Church in Istanbul. In 2009 the prestigious MA Gallery of Toto in Tokyo made an anthological exhibition of his work that in 2011 was in the MAXXI in Rome.
Act.>. 04-2012