Archipelago
Archipelago
Estonian National Museum International Competition Entry by Kivi Sotamaa & Antti Ahlava
Museum as a Record of the Phases of Estonian Culture
Introduction to a cultural archipelago
Archipelago
One unique aspect of the fenno-ugric language groups and cultures is that rather than existing as a continuous mass; they are a group of settlements far from one another. The Estonians are closely connected to the Finnish and Livonian cultures, but distant from some of their relatives such as the Hungarians, the Mordvi, the Mari, the Votics, the Komi, and especially the Mansi and Khanty cultures. This anthropological network that Estonia belongs to can be seen as an ARCHIPELAGO. Our museum has been conceived as an archipelago. The “islands” are the exhibition spaces, surrounded by the “flood” of spaces surrounding them.
Flood
Islands exist in water – sea, ocean, or river. Water is the force that sorts the materials into geological layers, which later become sedimentary rock and islands. The in-between space flowing everywhere in the museum is like the water. Only in this case the flow is people, the material of our cultural history.
Strata
The islands of an archipelago are made of geological STRATA, which are created by means of at least two distinct operations: Sorting and cementing. When one looks closely at the layers of rock, one is struck by the observation that each layer contains further layers, each composed of pebbles that are nearly homogeneous with respect to size, shape and chemical composition. Once the raw materials have been sorted out into more or less homogeneous groupings deposited at the bottom of the sea, a second operation transforms these loose collections of pebbles into a larger scale entity: sedimentary rock, which is exposed for example in the islands of the Baltic Sea. This stratification is embodied in the material articulation of the surfaces of the monolithic exhibition volumes.
Metaphor
The terms archipelago and strata embodied in the organization of the museum’s exhibition spaces and materials are on one hand metaphors, involving for example the idea that just as the geological strata are layers of rocky material stacked on top of each other, so the periods of history and the classes and castes of the society are layers of human material, or the idea that the Fenno-Ugric cultures are a rare group of settlements scattered far from each other, metaphorically an archipelago.
Diagram
However evocative the image of the archipelago, it is possible to go beyond metaphor and suggest, as Manuel de Landa did in his Thousand Years of Non Linear History, that the genesis of both geological and social strata involve the same engineering DIAGRAM. It is possible to use the geological diagrams in an operative sense in order to create a museum that embodies the non-linear nature of historical processes in its operation and architecture.
Non-linear
A chemical compound may exist in several distinct states (solid, liquid, gas) and may switch from a liquid state to a stable state at critical points in the intensity of temperature called phase transitions.
A good example of an organizational diagram operative in history was presented by the physicist Arthur Iberall. He used it to visualize the major transitions in early human history (for example the transitions from a hunter-gatherer to an agriculturalist) not as a linear advance up the ladder of progress but as the crossing of NON-LINEAR CRITICAL THRESHOLDS.
Equally a human society, such as the Estonians, can be seen as material having been capable of undergoing these changes of state as it has reached critical mass in terms of the density of settlement, the amount of cultural energy consumed and the intensity of human interaction. And just as the solid, liquid and gas phases of water may coexist, so each new human phase of Estonia and its relative cultures have added itself to other ones, coexisting and interacting with them without leaving them in the past, creating strata of historical layers.
Phases
Our national museum can be seen as a record of the polymorphous PHASES of the culture. Our museum is not only a metaphor of historical flow between sedimented islands, but also an operational device embodying these principles in its very essence.
Our main exhibition spaces are hidden in an archipelago of large chunks of stratified limestone, but simultaneously these spaces are stratifications of exhibition material and the masses of people.The circulation between the exhibition islands allows for a multiplicity of paths through them. This unusual staging of the exhibition spaces produces a non-linear unfolding of the experiences of phases of the Estonian and Finno-Ugric cultures.
The space between the exhibition islands is like a river. Only in this case it is people who flow. This flow-space is urban in its character. It urges the museum to be not only an exhibition space, but also an active place of creation. The in-between space is a multipurpose and meant for temporary happenings, workshops and extra exhibitions.
Another aspect of the non-linearity of the building is that the four sections of the museum – the open non-exhibition zone, the open exhibition zone, the closed collection zone and the closed non-collection zone are interacting with each other in ways previously rare in museums. The visitors can experience the employees conducting their daily work behind the finely louvered wall of the office zone. There is also a similar discreet visual connection from the open non-exhibition zone to the exhibition areas. [The connections to the closed collection zone in the basement have been put inside the curving poche walls of the exhibition halls].
Context
The museum complex thrives to be sensitive to the two different conditions on the site; the street on one side and the lake and the landscape on the other. The building stages a unified urban front towards the street. It is both is materially and formally solid. The boundary towards the lake is diffused, materially clear and open. The scale shifts down from street to lake; the islands towards the street corner are large and monumental, towards the lake they become lower and more sparsely distributed.
Materiality
The museum complex is a compilation of different stages of material transformations: The main exhibition spaces [A] are surrounded by lower building parts [B.C] including the reception, the public amenities [B] and offices [C[. They are reminding of sandy banks of a meandering river in the stream of which large monolithic rock [the galleries AA] lie.
The monoliths are made of narrow limestone stripes, which produce an effect akin to geological rock sections. The stream has polished the striated limestone interior surfaces of the monolithic exhibition islands, but the robust stone has kept its texture on the parts hovering over the roof of the museum. This is as if a giant ethnographical wave has flooded the building.
The ground level of the building, like the riverbed, is formed by strata of levels, combining the landscape of the site with the interior geometry of the building. The floor material is concrete with epoxy.
The spaces between the building volumes are modified by an imaginary stream. All the materials selected for the lower spaces around the monumental islands are ephemeral in nature and aim, in concert with the use of fluid geometry, to produce a sense of liquidity around the massive, monolithic structures. The effect is produced by the use of very directional and fluid ruled surface geometry. The curving surfaces on the two sides of the main exhibition area are built of an extremely fine striation of horizontal white louvers which extend from the interior of the building to the exterior, where together with a glass screen they form a part of the exterior facade. The rest of the façade is also constituted by materials that flow from inside out. For example the light green glass surfaces of the museum operate both outside on the edge of the courtyard and the façade towards the lake, as well as inside by the visitor service spaces and office zones. The corner façade towards the two streets is made of white silkscreen printed and painted glass which extends inside the office zone by the secondary entrance, on the east façade.
Basic technical indicators
- The building has a basement made of concrete and the upper parts made with a steel structure.
–ground floor program area 11,360 m2
–ground floor multipurpose space and technical space 14,669 m2
–ground floor gross area 26,029 m2
–basement program area (storage)=basement gross space 11,280 m2
–total gross area 37,360 m2
Renderings by Zebracolor
Estonian National Museum International Competition Entry by Kivi Sotamaa & Antti Ahlava
Museum as a Record of the Phases of Estonian Culture
Introduction to a cultural archipelago
Archipelago
One unique aspect of the fenno-ugric language groups and cultures is that rather than existing as a continuous mass; they are a group of settlements far from one another. The Estonians are closely connected to the Finnish and Livonian cultures, but distant from some of their relatives such as the Hungarians, the Mordvi, the Mari, the Votics, the Komi, and especially the Mansi and Khanty cultures. This anthropological network that Estonia belongs to can be seen as an ARCHIPELAGO. Our museum has been conceived as an archipelago. The “islands” are the exhibition spaces, surrounded by the “flood” of spaces surrounding them.
Flood
Islands exist in water – sea, ocean, or river. Water is the force that sorts the materials into geological layers, which later become sedimentary rock and islands. The in-between space flowing everywhere in the museum is like the water. Only in this case the flow is people, the material of our cultural history.
Strata
The islands of an archipelago are made of geological STRATA, which are created by means of at least two distinct operations: Sorting and cementing. When one looks closely at the layers of rock, one is struck by the observation that each layer contains further layers, each composed of pebbles that are nearly homogeneous with respect to size, shape and chemical composition. Once the raw materials have been sorted out into more or less homogeneous groupings deposited at the bottom of the sea, a second operation transforms these loose collections of pebbles into a larger scale entity: sedimentary rock, which is exposed for example in the islands of the Baltic Sea. This stratification is embodied in the material articulation of the surfaces of the monolithic exhibition volumes.
Metaphor
The terms archipelago and strata embodied in the organization of the museum’s exhibition spaces and materials are on one hand metaphors, involving for example the idea that just as the geological strata are layers of rocky material stacked on top of each other, so the periods of history and the classes and castes of the society are layers of human material, or the idea that the Fenno-Ugric cultures are a rare group of settlements scattered far from each other, metaphorically an archipelago.
Diagram
However evocative the image of the archipelago, it is possible to go beyond metaphor and suggest, as Manuel de Landa did in his Thousand Years of Non Linear History, that the genesis of both geological and social strata involve the same engineering DIAGRAM. It is possible to use the geological diagrams in an operative sense in order to create a museum that embodies the non-linear nature of historical processes in its operation and architecture.
Non-linear
A chemical compound may exist in several distinct states (solid, liquid, gas) and may switch from a liquid state to a stable state at critical points in the intensity of temperature called phase transitions.
A good example of an organizational diagram operative in history was presented by the physicist Arthur Iberall. He used it to visualize the major transitions in early human history (for example the transitions from a hunter-gatherer to an agriculturalist) not as a linear advance up the ladder of progress but as the crossing of NON-LINEAR CRITICAL THRESHOLDS.
Equally a human society, such as the Estonians, can be seen as material having been capable of undergoing these changes of state as it has reached critical mass in terms of the density of settlement, the amount of cultural energy consumed and the intensity of human interaction. And just as the solid, liquid and gas phases of water may coexist, so each new human phase of Estonia and its relative cultures have added itself to other ones, coexisting and interacting with them without leaving them in the past, creating strata of historical layers.
Phases
Our national museum can be seen as a record of the polymorphous PHASES of the culture. Our museum is not only a metaphor of historical flow between sedimented islands, but also an operational device embodying these principles in its very essence.
Our main exhibition spaces are hidden in an archipelago of large chunks of stratified limestone, but simultaneously these spaces are stratifications of exhibition material and the masses of people.The circulation between the exhibition islands allows for a multiplicity of paths through them. This unusual staging of the exhibition spaces produces a non-linear unfolding of the experiences of phases of the Estonian and Finno-Ugric cultures.
The space between the exhibition islands is like a river. Only in this case it is people who flow. This flow-space is urban in its character. It urges the museum to be not only an exhibition space, but also an active place of creation. The in-between space is a multipurpose and meant for temporary happenings, workshops and extra exhibitions.
Another aspect of the non-linearity of the building is that the four sections of the museum – the open non-exhibition zone, the open exhibition zone, the closed collection zone and the closed non-collection zone are interacting with each other in ways previously rare in museums. The visitors can experience the employees conducting their daily work behind the finely louvered wall of the office zone. There is also a similar discreet visual connection from the open non-exhibition zone to the exhibition areas. [The connections to the closed collection zone in the basement have been put inside the curving poche walls of the exhibition halls].
Context
The museum complex thrives to be sensitive to the two different conditions on the site; the street on one side and the lake and the landscape on the other. The building stages a unified urban front towards the street. It is both is materially and formally solid. The boundary towards the lake is diffused, materially clear and open. The scale shifts down from street to lake; the islands towards the street corner are large and monumental, towards the lake they become lower and more sparsely distributed.
Materiality
The museum complex is a compilation of different stages of material transformations: The main exhibition spaces [A] are surrounded by lower building parts [B.C] including the reception, the public amenities [B] and offices [C[. They are reminding of sandy banks of a meandering river in the stream of which large monolithic rock [the galleries AA] lie.
The monoliths are made of narrow limestone stripes, which produce an effect akin to geological rock sections. The stream has polished the striated limestone interior surfaces of the monolithic exhibition islands, but the robust stone has kept its texture on the parts hovering over the roof of the museum. This is as if a giant ethnographical wave has flooded the building.
The ground level of the building, like the riverbed, is formed by strata of levels, combining the landscape of the site with the interior geometry of the building. The floor material is concrete with epoxy.
The spaces between the building volumes are modified by an imaginary stream. All the materials selected for the lower spaces around the monumental islands are ephemeral in nature and aim, in concert with the use of fluid geometry, to produce a sense of liquidity around the massive, monolithic structures. The effect is produced by the use of very directional and fluid ruled surface geometry. The curving surfaces on the two sides of the main exhibition area are built of an extremely fine striation of horizontal white louvers which extend from the interior of the building to the exterior, where together with a glass screen they form a part of the exterior facade. The rest of the façade is also constituted by materials that flow from inside out. For example the light green glass surfaces of the museum operate both outside on the edge of the courtyard and the façade towards the lake, as well as inside by the visitor service spaces and office zones. The corner façade towards the two streets is made of white silkscreen printed and painted glass which extends inside the office zone by the secondary entrance, on the east façade.
Basic technical indicators
- The building has a basement made of concrete and the upper parts made with a steel structure.
–ground floor program area 11,360 m2
–ground floor multipurpose space and technical space 14,669 m2
–ground floor gross area 26,029 m2
–basement program area (storage)=basement gross space 11,280 m2
–total gross area 37,360 m2
Renderings by Zebracolor