Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Ílhavo Maritime Museum by ARX

Ílhavo Maritime Museum

The building where the museum resides, inaugurated on the 21st of October 2001, is itself a public work of art. Water is visible from all parts of the building, it is a beautiful model of the modern architecture of black and white combination with the volumetric space.
Ílhavo Maritime Museum
Design Team: ARX Portugal Arquitectos
Location: Ílhavo, Portugal
Status: Completed 2002

Created by the Ilhavenses (citizens of Ílhavo) the Museum started as a place of memory and recollections assuming an ethnographic and regional vocation. It was and still is a certification of the strong link between the Ilhavos to the Sea and Ria de Aveiro.

Ílhavo Maritime Museum
Ílhavo Maritime Museum
Ílhavo Maritime Museum

The Museum enlargement and remodelling, done by ARX Portugal Arquitectos, of the brothers Nuno and José Mateus, was a strong impelling element of the Museum´s renovation.

The architects carried out a deep transformation on the existing structure, dignifying the social, economic and cultural importance of fishing while improving the surroundings. The extension and remodeling undertaken were extensive, almost doubling the previous surface area (now 3850m2) and restructuring the layout, installations and image. The existing alignment on the street front was kept intact; the new volume was added inside the plot, creating a new interior garden.

Ílhavo Maritime Museum
Ílhavo Maritime Museum

The constraints imposed on the project conditioned the decision to juxtapose volumes while preserving their autonomy. A first element of the project was to rethink the construction and functional elements of the existing structure, to which a narrow wing was added along its entire length to house accesses and the technical infrastructure of the building. The new volumes were anchored onto this wing: the large Sala da Ria; the black slate central tower for temporary exhibitions, enigmatic, floating on water; the administrative block with library and coffee shop.

Ílhavo Maritime Museum was distinguished with the AICA/MC 2002 award of the International Association of the Art Critics of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture.

Ílhavo Maritime Museum
Ílhavo Maritime Museum
Ílhavo Maritime Museum
Ílhavo Maritime Museum

via ARX

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