Diego del Castillo - The Museum of God

[ddelcast]

The Museum of God

Museums have been called “the Cathedrals of the 20th Century”. For this project, my Architectural Marvel will be an Architectural Marvel of the past century; hence it is appropriate to design a museum. The bigger question would be: How would this museum differentiate from the thousands of museums built in the past century?. Let’s go back to my first quote: Cathedrals in the Dark Ages where a measure of the wealth and importance of any given city. The bigger the cathedral, the more important the city. This helped develop countless of construction technologies to accomplish that bigness (not Koolhaas’s bigness). Returning to the project, this museum will be themed around god (whatever or whoever he is) and will be a place where the many religious aspects of our world are manifest. This aspect will help problematize the aspect of seeing museums as cathedrals (I think irony is an important characteristic of the arts). One common aspect of religions is that there is an aspect of calmness associated with worship which I think this project should hold dear.
The design should try and push the limit of current technologies and at the same time be in peace with the biggest and most universal god: mother nature. The design may be big or small but most of all clear and should evoke calmness and technological excellence.
As far as a sketch go, I consider these paragraphs my sketch but for the skeptical, a site plan with some ideas follows.

[TheAllusionist]

Great job in both verbal description and schematic sketch. It will be great to see it develop and how you pull it off.

[Designer]

Great narrative and visual concept. Yours seems to be a very intellectual approach to the design problem. I have to see more to understand how you intend to achieve these esotoric design aspirations. Here is what I am interpreting, and liking from the written narrative: It seems that even though the overall project will be grand, that you are attempting a more intimate approach to the individuals experience of the project. It seems that a peaceful "one with nature" is a bit of a departure from the typical psychology of a church, Large entry (impress), tight tunnel (controled), large room (demonstrate insignificants in comparison). Of course my example is not indicative of all religions or churches, I am just saying I like your "one with nature" approach and I realize it is a museum and not a church.

The problem I see sometimes with such lofty concepts guiding a design, is that usually it has to be explained to the general public and is not intuitively evident to the average person. I am sure you can pull it off and I can't wait to see it progress.

[draphtur]

The concept behind this design reminds me of a temple that Frank Lloyd Wright did (Unity Temple in Oak Park?). He used the light and structure to create a place of worship that focused on peace and nature. I think it will be very interesting to see the marriage of calmness and serenity with the idea of the wonder.

I do have one idea though. Maybe it is totally unfounded since your concept sketches might not reflect the form of the building, but it might be worth thinking about. I view the vertical (perhaps there to connect the earthly with the divine) as a contrast to the site you have sketched. Instead of complimenting the site, I see it as dominating it. While it might have an important purpose, spiritually, it may be sacrificing the other aspect of your design, the calmness.

Looks exciting though and, like I said, it'll be interesting to see the combination of calmness and wonder in a structure.

[ddelcast]

Thank you very much for your comments and I am sure will follow some. I agree with designer in that most of these theoretical projects are very difficult to explain to laypeople but that is what I like most of them. They present themselves as something with a particular meaning but then later many different meanings can be extrapolated from them. McLuhan said the medium is the message and if you posit architecture as a medium, one has to think very thoroughly how it presents itself BY ITSELF (rarely we see essays explaining the building posted in buildings entrances ). That precisely is the challenge and while I actually see the many different meanings a particular project may convey is not a bad think (too much control is boring) , it is certainly interesting to see if they approach the intended meaning (Think Villa Bordeaux: it can be read in a thousand different ways just for the fact that its horizontal surfaces are continuous if you take away intentionality and see how architecture posits itself by itself.
In terms of the verticality of the project, there are many vertical structures in nature…when I said “one with nature” I didn’t mean buried or invisible, I meant that it should be very perceptive of its own scale and its relationship with the site. The calmness (I think) may be achieved by the elegance and clarity of its design (think again of Bordeaux or the Farnsworth house or any of Ando’s houses or even Holl’s Y house (or maybe not). I really like your suggestion about light, I think one can do a lot of thinks with light without complicating the design much.
Thank you very much for your comments I am really looking forward for your next ones…
BTW are you guys participating?

[CAHDsman]

Although your examples lean towards the modernistic, the dialogue ensuing reminds me some of the chapels by Fay Jones where earthy materials like timber form a lattice work of structure that reaches skyward like trees in a forest. This isn't the direction I think you are going, but the imagery formed from the discussion leads me to think of this work. From your stated examples I see strong horizontal masses floating with void perhaps encased in glass with some element insinuating transcendece, it will be intersting to see if this can overcome the instilled imagery of historic architecture as being a wonder. Yes, there is plenty of modernistic work that permeates greatness, I am just talking about what the layman may have imagined via pre-conception. It looks like there will be a great variety in the approaches to this design solution, it should be exciting.

[ddelcast]

I would probably go towards a modernist approach, but that does not mean I could not use timber or stone. And yes I also thought of horizontal surfaces. Program wise I am thinking of this structure as a passage to overcome religious preconceptions and into something greater, more universal and democratic. Maybe the way you travel through is some sort of ritual or evokes a ritualistic aura.
Overcoming the classic preconception of wonder will be the tough part... Right now I am working on the site which I will post soon...

[draphtur]

I am participating. My stuff is under "Sean Waldron + Anthrolation"

I can see the relation of verticals to nature, but it appears in your concept as more monolithis at the waters edge. Sometimes, it seems, that when we (as humans) attempt to mimic (or be "at one with") nature, we produce something that contrasts it more than compliments it. I'm not saying this is the case with your design, but I think it is something to be mindful of through treatment of scale, context (both of which you already mentioned), relation of parts, etc.

[ddelcast]

Mimesis is parody....think irony.

[TheAllusionist]

Lively discussion guys, some great theory and insight! Almost like being in architectural school again, it is easy to get beaten down by the mundane in this profession, it is fun to see reason and conceptualization flourish in the contest. Keep up the great stratagizing! LOL