Throughout history architecture has tended to be expressed through volumes in difficult relationship with their urban surroundings. The enlargement of the Joanneum Museum, on the contrary, arose with the express intention of acting within the limits of the city’s horizontal plane and offering it a new public space. The Joanneumsviertel of Graz comprises three buildings of different periods – the Natural History Museum, the Regional Library of Styria and the New Gallery of Contemporary Art – that had their backs turned on one another, so to speak. The project has now given the complex a shared entrance, conference hall and other services, as well as a lower level for archives and storage. Resisting the temptation to leave a mark through an iconic intervention, it opted for an architectural and urbanistic transformation that would exalt the preexisting historic constructions. The result is a respectful restoration that has affected only certain interior areas, leaving the original exterior image and volumes of the ensemble intact. The intensity of the operation is concentrated in the horizontal surface of the new public square, which is dotted now with a series of circular courtyards that serve to bring natural light into the underground spaces and contain the entrance, the foyer and other areas shared by the museums and the library, serving as meeting places...
[+][+]