ALBERTA NORWEG

Galeria Adriana Varejão

24 marzo 2009.
Photographer Leonardo Finotti has sent us these photos of the Galeria Adriana Varejão pavilion, designed by Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez for Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea in Brumadinho, Brazil.

The museum is made up of multiple pavilions throughout the 35-hectare park.

The Galeria Adriana Varejão pavilion was commissioned to house a sculpture and polyptych by Brazilian artist Adriana Varejão.

Visitors move through the building following a spiral path that leads them between two levels of the park.

Here’s some more about the project from Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez:
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Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea is located in Brumadinho, a village near Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais state. A personal initiative of the mining industry businessman Bernardo Paz, the museum has an unusual architectural concept.

Instead of summing up all its installations into a unique building, it is composed of many pavilions spread out in a park of approximately 35 hectares.

The Adriana Varejão Gallery was commissioned to shelter two works of the artist acquired by the museum and exhibited at Cartier Foundation: the sculpture Linda do Rosário and the polyptych Celacanto Provoca Maremoto (with the further development of the project, the artist created another four works for the building).

The project should occupy a hillside with a small slope (typical of the topography of Minas Gerais, composed of old and smooth hills) partially surrounded by the native forest, an area formerly used to store containers. The original topography was modified for this new use: a huge displacement of earth has cut it, creating the great horizontal plane necessary to the storage.

The orientation of the project aimed to recompose the site’s original topography and inserting on it an artificial element: a regular block in reinforced concrete (prestressed wasn’t necessary), partially inserted in the hillside. The building structure is composed by an irregular retaining wall that gains the space in the ground floor and receives the loads of the block, in its deepest part, trough two beams, in the middle, through 4 columns integrated in the wall.

The building was also conceived as a spiral path that connects two different levels of the park, alternating moments of contraction/passage and expansion/exhibition: from the ground floor, (1, contraction) in the middle of the water pond, in a narrow promenade, away from the building; (2 expansion: Varejão’s piece Panacea Phantastica, a tile bench with drawings of hallucinatory plants) The small square plaza of the groundfloor; (3 contraction) The promenade turns to the building; (4 expansion: the sculpture Linda do Rosário and the paiting The Collector) the ground floor, inside the hill, below the concrete block; (5 contraction) The stairs; (6 expansion, the polyptych Celacanto provoca maremoto) The first pavement, inside the concrete block; (7 contraction) The ramp; (8 expansion: another tile bench, now with drawings of birds, Passarinhos-from Inhotim to Demini) The terrace, above the concrete block; (9 contraction) The bridge. And vice versa.

Name and site of the project: Galeria Adriana Varejão
Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea.
Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brasil.

Architect: Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez
Design team:
Architect: Rodrigo Cerviño Lopez
Collaborators: Fernando Falcon, Eduardo Chalabi
Trainee: Marcus Vinicius dos Santos

Structural engineering: Suely Bueno, engineer, JKMF
Construction management: Felipe Salim, engineer, Janaina Mello, architect, Inhotim
Client: Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea

Built area: 558 m_ (gross)
Design phase (beginning and ending month, year):
November 2004, November 2006
Construction phase (beginning and ending month, year):
March 2006, March 2008
Maximum height of the building from ground level: 10,10 meters
Minimum and maximum temperatures of Brumadinho:
Minimum: 80C, July
Maximum: 290C, January, February, March

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/03/24/galeria-adriana-varejao-by-rodrigo-cervino-lopez/#more-26636

Tea house by David Maštálka.

23 marzo 2009.
David Maštálka of A1 Architects has collaborated with sculptor Vojtech Bilisic to build a tea house in Prague, Czech Republic.

Open to the surrounding gardens on one side, the small structure has a translucent, domed roof covered with paper.

It was built using oak and the exterior is clad in burnt larch wood.

Here’s some more information from David Maštálka:
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Teahouse – A minimal place to gather
David Maštálka / A1ARCHITECTS
The Garden
At the foot of the hill dividing Hloubetin and Aloisov you’ll find a small garden. The garden is unostentatious, slightly wild but even so graceful, each spring apple and cherry trees blossom and when summer swiftly blows upon us our sight of the passing clouds is surrounded by slim blades of grass.

The teahouse as a minimal place to gather
The Teahouse as a typology follows the Japanese tradition of minimizing space and is intended as a place to meet with guest over a cup of tea. I am not an orthodox worshiper of the tea cult, however I am very interested in the theme of it being a place to gather with friends. From the outside an inconspicuous structure is ready to surprise it’s visitors upon arriving inside, giving them a different perspective of the garden.

A world hidden inside, where time flows at its own pace, an vacant space leaving an impression just by its spaciousness. When first reasoning about such a place I thought of the places that had made an impression upon me and came to the decision of building it on a circular platform enclosed by a translucent dome breathing the inner peace of small sacred buildings. Diffused rays of light illuminate the quarters within; the translucent dome resembles the sky and the hearth – the home. The spherical shape directs your attention to the hearth, on which the tea is prepared and creates a close bondage with all who are present.

Natural material
The inner walls are constituted on one side by a view of the garden and on the other a clay parget. Guests set themselves down on the matt and the hearth is welded black steel. The dome laminated within is pasted with paper, through which light shines and invitingly illuminates the space inside.

Minimal place to gather
The Teahouse serves as a place for gathering with guests. The invitation itself begins a certain tense moment of anticipation, during which we would like to present our guests with a enjoyable experience. The moment of gathering where we share our feelings and impressions – our own mutual closeness which I think can not be better depicted by anyone other than master Sen no Rikyú.

A house and dewed ground
Guest and host
Drinking together a cup of tea
In quiet contemplation
In spiritual symphony

Building and construction
Carpented oak construction stands on stones from a nearby pond. Burnt larch facing creates a mimic colouring effect of a building in a garden because the attention of the gathering itself is focused on the inner world, which one discloses only upon entering. The master of construction is Vojtech Bilisic with whom I built the Teahouse in 35 days.

Acknowledgements
For great help I thank first of all my beloved Lenka, Vojta, sister Marta, professor Terunobu Fujimori, who visited during construction and Petr Holý, who heartedly interpreted our rendezvous.
http://www.dezeen.com/2009/03/19/tea-house-by-david-mastalka/#more-26507

Cabel Industry headquarters by Massimo Mariani.

20 marzo 2009.
Italian architects Massimo Mariani have completed the company headquarters for software company Cabel Industry in Empoli, near Florence, Italy.

The building has two storeys above ground, with exhibition spaces in the basement.

The area around the building has been excavated to admit light to the lower level.

Three bridges span the gap, which contains a public lawn.

The structure is made of pre-cast, concrete components with aluminium cladding on the roof and ends.

Here’s some more information from Massimo Mariani:
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CABEL INDUSTRY
Just out the edge of the town of Empoli, the building is the Cabel headquarter (a company producing software systems for banks), it measures 4.500 square meters and it is sited inside the local industrial area.

Partially set into the ground, the building is composed of two extended floors out the ground level and a vault under. Along the main front the facade is protected by a long slice of public green.

The visitor arrives on the ground level through three suspended bridges launched on a large excavation which lights the vault designed to house expositions and art installations. Night time this empty space becomes a lighting pool which raises architecture from the ground.

The underground floor hold a printing house and open spaces designed for various initiatives; the ground floor interiors are conceptualized as many kind of glass spaces in a modern interaction of liquid working areas like acquarium. On the upper floor there are directional bureaus and representative offices with a patio and terrace. The elevators and distributional stairs take up the middle section of the structural grid, made of stone tiles with steel elevators.

Everything comes out from a single sign: architectural global shape, fastenings, entrance cuts, furniture handles and decorations. During the day coloured glass create liquid chromatic effects inside black and white offices, instead of night time when coloured cuts project out vivid lighting effects underlining holes, cuts and shapes of the building.