SPECIAL FEATURE
Featuring best four musuems of the world known for their exceptional architectural design
Unconventional and interesting museums from across the globe
ArtScience Museum, Singapore
ArtScience Museum is a living, breathing embodiment of the fusion of art and science. Designed by renowned architect Moshie Safdie, the lotus-inspired ArtScience Museum is at the intersection of art and science where innovation and new ideas are formed. The building form is made of 10 “fingers” anchored by a unique round base in the middle. The design of each finger reveals different gallery spaces featuring skylights at the “finger tips” that illuminate the dramatically curved interior walls. The museum’s roof channels rainwater through the central atrium of the building creating a 35-meter water drop into a small, reflecting pool. The rainwater is then recycled for use in the building. Material such as Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer (GFRP), typically used in high-performance racing yachts, which has never been used in a project in Singapore, was used for the construction of this architectural wonder. Their mission is to explore a space where art, science, culture and technology come together.
Duxford Air Museum, UK
The award-winning American Air Museum building was designed by celebrated British architect Lord Norman Foster. It is located at IWM Duxford, part of Imperial War Museums, near Cambridge and opened in 1997. The design for the Air Museum was to provide a permanent home for the B-52 and twenty other aircraft dating from the First World War to the Gulf War. The layout of museum highlights the take-offs and landings during air shows and create a window on to the runway. The dimensions of the B-52 (a 61-metre wingspan and 16-metre-high tail fin) established the building’s height and width, and provided the principle axis through which the museum is entered. The building’s drama comes from the powerful arc of the roof − engineered to support suspended aircraft − and the sweep of the glazed wall overlooking the runway. A continuous strip of glazing around the base of the vault washes the interior in daylight.
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Fondation Louis Vuitton brings the city a new space devoted to art with focus to contemporary art and above all a place for meaningful exchanges between artists and visitors across world. The Fondation transcends the ephemeral present by creating optimistic momentum and embodying a passion for artistic freedom. Frank Gehry is one of the greatest architects of all times, and he designed this amazing monument of 21st century. He stands as an example of being a true visionary, embracing the values of excellence and unyielding professionalism that have always defined Louis Vuitton. His building is a veritable masterpiece and is itself the subject of the exhibition on the ground floor of the Fondation, designed specially to offer insights into this remarkable work. Frank Gehry’s building is in fact the first artistic statement by the Fondation, initiating an approach to artistic creativity that debuts with the public opening and will progressively affirm its vocation.
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York
Smithsonian Design Museum comes from a royal history where once it was a mansion to industrial magnate Andrew Carnegie. The architectural firm of Babb, Cook & Willard designed the mansion in the solidly comfortable style of an English Georgian country house in 1902. The building received landmark status in 1974 as the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum. A team of the world’s leading design firms, Gluckman Mayner Architects joined forces with the museum to realize the vision and renovated the interiors of the mansion. Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed the casework and the first layout of the modular display cases for the exhibitions in the first- and second-floor galleries, as well as the visitors services desk, the 90th Street entrance canopy, the LED lighting of the museum’s historic granite piers, and SHOP Cooper Hewitt. Also, the architects worked on converting a private garden of mansion into public green space.