Museo de Arte Contemporaneo: White Rock

The Museo de Arte ContemporaneoHelga de Alvear inCáceres, Spain, was to be extended.TuñónArquitectos have effectively placed a building against the city walls of the medieval topography.

Three hours southwest of Madrid lies Caceres, the provincial capital of Extremadura. The medieval town has plenty of traces of Roman and Christian civilization and from the time of the Arab occupation. The walled historic city center has its origins in the fourth to twelfth centuries and is one of the best-preserved historical monuments in Europe. The old town has also been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986 and rises impressively above the new town.

In the center is the Plaza Mayor with the town hall and the Torre de Bujaco from the Moorish era. Right next to it are impressive aristocratic palaces and historic religious buildings. The headquarters of the foundation of the well-known art collector and gallery owner Helga de Alvear is located in one of the city palaces on the south-western edge of the old town. The Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Helga de Alvear is also housed here, in the historic Casa Grande dating from 1913. After opening in 2010, the building was extended around ten years later by Tuñón Arquitectos.

The renovation and extension of the foundation was carried out in two stages. From 2006, architect Emilio Tuñón worked on the restoration and extension of the original Casa Grande at Mansilla + Tuñón. This was followed by the extension of the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo on a plot of land between the city palace and the medieval city wall by Tuñón Arquitectos.

The result is a total of 2,000 square meters of additional exhibition space on four levels. There is now more space for around 3,000 works from the important private collection of international art, with exhibits by Pablo Picasso, Olafur Eliasson, Tacita Dean, Katharina Grosse and Susana Solano. They were all donated to the city. The collector had the historic city palace converted into the headquarters of her “Helga de Alvear Foundation”, which is now a venue for workshops and temporary exhibitions. The building also houses a library and offices.

New paths

The new exhibition building is located in the historical and topographical border area between the old and new town and is staggered into the hill along the edge of the slope. In a way, it closes a gap here and becomes a link between the two parts of the city. There is even an art garden, the “Extramuros”, between the old building and the new exhibition building. It thus becomes an interface between public and private life and a link between the old and new parts of the city. Tuñón Arquitectos designed a curved path with long ramps that unfolds parallel to the street and along the slope like a plateau.

The location is symbolically important, says Emilio Tuñón, as this was once the area where people moved from the city center to the outside and vice versa. According to the architect, the extension has turned the site back into a “permeable urban space”.

The new building stands out clearly from the historic brick architecture with its gleaming white concrete and cubic severity, while at the same time cleverly blending into the cityscape. It develops in line with the topography of the site along the city wall, creating a strong edge. Cuts have been made at some corners, steps have been created and in some places there are square window openings of different sizes. In this way, the architects have responded to the terrain, allowing the new building to grow up the slope and also pushing it gently into the hill. This creates a harmonious overall impression, in which the overly strong contrast between the old and new buildings gives way to a coherent ensemble. The new building also opens up towards the inside of the square, where it docks onto the old building.

In total, it forms four levels of different sizes and thus bridges the 24 meter difference in terrain between the old and new town. The façade and supporting structure consists of white-colored concrete pillars. They give the building a strict structure and contrast with the sand-colored city walls and medieval walls in the surrounding area. In some places, the façade is permeable and offsets the overly closed impression of the concrete building. The 20 x 60 centimeter pillars in the façade create a strong light and shadow effect, which can also be experienced inside.

Along the flights of stairs, the pillars are designed as light wells and shade the outside areas of the gallery. The grid is continued inside. Here, the pillars are translated into room dividers or wooden fixtures. When choosing the materials, the architects opted for oak for the window frames and fixtures. The concrete floor is polished gray and the walls are painted white.

The exhibition areas are spacious and restrained, entirely in the service of art. The standard floors have a clear height of 4.5 meters. There are also three areas with a ceiling height of nine meters for the presentation of particularly large works of art. Light joints and large openings at specific points direct the light in a targeted manner, creating a wide variety of lighting moods in the exhibition rooms. “We wanted to create a very neutral space in which art can feel comfortable,” says Tuñón.

The result is a gallery that is entirely dedicated to art on the inside and makes an architectural statement on the outside. It is a self-confident building that does not hide behind the auratic walls of the historic old town, but does not appear as a solitaire either. Rather, the new building becomes a link between the historic city and the new town, creating an effortless transition between the times.

An exhibition space has also recently opened in the Arctic wilderness. Find out more about the Ilulissat Icefjord Center by Danish architect Dorte Mandrup here.