Framing Architecture

 

/ abstract

This essay is a study of the relationship between the landscape and architecture: ways in which landscape is used to enhance the architecture and produce special moments, putting the building in context. It questions whether architecture is used as a framing device or if it becomes an integral part of the overall composition. The case study is the Museum of Modern Art in Louisiana.

 

The Museum was built over a long period of time, in six separate stages, addressing the needs at the time but overall becoming a coherent architectural project nonetheless. The architects Jorgen Bo and Vilhelm Wohlert have been involved with the project from its conception to its final form, designing extensions to address a variety of requirements due to the Museum gaining popularity with local and international visitors. The lighting requirements differed throughout the complex resulting in the most recent and final extension being placed underneath the site; a series of completely enclosed spaces not visible to the eye from the ground level. This series of spaces allows light to penetrate from above but has no visual connections to the outside, whereas some other rooms are completely exposed, blending the transition between the two via large glass openings.

 

The essay looks at the spatial hierarchy and how the Museum of Modern Art maintains the relationship to nature. It accounts for how nature can co-exist with the manmade and whether it benefits from this direct relationship. Addressing the program of the building and the relationship it possesses with its surrounding, I will analyse whether the picturesque landscape ultimately becomes a work of art on display or an extension of the built form. The circulation and the openings are going to be the main focus of my study, as well as some accounts of materiality and construction.

As a result of this study, I found out how landscape affects the architecture and architecture in turn affects our experience; the extent to which they are mutually responsive and whether the building’s enclosure distances us from the surroundings or lets us embrace its beauty.

 

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