- Verkehrshaus, Switzerland
By far my favourite museum space as a child was the Verkhershaus (’Transportation Museum’) in Lucerne. It was a campus consisting of a series of buildings, each themed to a specific mode of transport. The two buildings for road transportation, pictured below, used decommissioned road signs and recycle tires to construct the exterior building facades. While the repurposed materials do little in terms of structural support, it is a creative and aesthetically exciting design choice that does not add to the embodied carbon of the building. It also makes wayfinding across the museum easy, something can often be complex in maze-like museums with many different exhibition spaces.
As for the interior, the high ceilings of the warehouse like buildilngs, allow for the displayed pieces (in this case airplanes) to hang from the ceiling. This provides the visitors with a unique experience, in which the design space is used in a 3D nature, both horizontal and vertical displays.
- National Gallery, Singapore
The national gallery in Singapore has always grabbed my attention for it’s stunning architectural design. For some context, the former Supreme Court and City Hall buildings were rennnovated into the national gallery museum. As you can see in the photo below, the original buildings have been preserved, and encased by a lager structure. Given that Singapore is often nicknamed ‘the garden city’ for it’s many green spaces, this theme has inspired the column design of the museum. Tree and branch like columns support the walkways and canopy roof, which itself resembles a forest canopy by allowing sunlight to creep through. The walkways between the buildings allow for direct access from one event space to the next, zigzaging up the different floors.
