new museum cairo
THE SITE: Between the Modern Complexities of Cairo and the Ancient Culture of the Pyramids
Model photo
photo : Richard Davies
Three significant elements organise the New Museum within the site: • The Plateau Edge, which divides the site into higher and lower sections. • The View towards the Pyramids. • The Cairo-Alexandria Approach.
Exterior Night rendering
image : Archimation
ARCHITECTURAL PROPOSAL: Architecturalizing the Face of the Plateau
The proposal for the Grand Egyptian Museum begins by forming a new ‘edge’ to the Plateau, by creating a gentle slope as a thin veil of translucent stone structured by fractal geometry; opening and closing like foldings within the desert sand. As seen from Cairo, this newly inscribed surface of translucent stone constructs a dynamic identity; yet from within the museum, this surface traces a new visual trajectory towards the Pyramids. The wall of the museum can be understood as a rhythm of structural (physical) and spatial (effect-ive) foldings within the Plateau face, architecturalizing and intensifying its timeless surface.
Exterior Day rendering
image : Archimation
BETWEEN THE SPACE OF THE PYRAMIDS: Relationship between the Museum and the Pyramids
The museum occupies a void within a 3-dimensional frame inscribed by a set of visual axes from the site to the three Pyramids. In plan, the lines that structure the museum are traced along these same visual lines. In section, the museum is structured along the ascent from the entrance and its parks to the Plateau level.
Model photo
photo : Richard Davies
LOOKING TO CAIRO: Relationship between the Museum and Cairo
The New Museum is located at the first desert plateau outside Cairo, between the Pyramids and Cairo. It acts at the intersection between Modernity and Antiquity, literally redirecting the traveler from the modernity of Cairo and Alexandria to the Ancient Heritage of the Egyptians. Urbanistically, the museum is an ‘inscription’, inscribing the point at which the visitor changes direction from the city towards the Pyramids. The museum traces a new profile for the Plateau without competing with the Pyramids, utilising its’ siting and length to operate within the horizontal flows so indicative of modern vision and movement.
THE FIFTH FAÇADE: A New Horizon The New Museum is sited at the intersection of two cones of vision, the View to the Pyramids and the View to Cairo. The View to the Pyramids is inscribed into the structural lines of the museum. The View to Cairo is traced by the path of the Nile Park which extends from the Dunal Park at the Plateau level, across the folds in the Roof and inscribed into the lines that define the Piazza as it extends to the city.
The structural folds that form the roof extend the dunal landscape of the site, maintaining the line of the desert plateau whilst constructing and spatialising a new horizon to view the city of Cairo.
image : heneghan.peng.architects
SCULPTING WITH LIGHT: Movement Voids From the scale of the site to the scale of the display case, light carves and defines the spaces of the new Museum Complex, from its Open-Air System of parks to its precisely controlled environments of artifacts.
Two Bands of Light divide the site into three bands: Lower Plateau: Infrastructural area to the road side Ascent to Plateau: Cultural area of the GEM Upper Plateau: Natural area of the Dunal Park.
Light excavates the primary systems of movement through the plateau, The light-filled Grand Staircase, The Void of the Translucent Stone Wall The Visual Causeway The Digital Streams: Light voids that carve through the plateau to be occupied as
Published on 01/24/2011
