Lugo History Museum

Description

The site of the competition for the Interactive Museum of the History of Lugo - which until recently still housed old industrial structures - occupies a relatively displaced position with respect to the historic centre, although it will soon become a point of arrival for visitors to the city. This is mainly due to the decision to locate a large car park on the scale of urban infrastructure, which directly affects the conception of the project.Architecture and landscape merge in our proposal for a museum-park, or a park-museum, which will be linked to the sequence of green spaces in the city by hiding the parking areas underground and emerging in a constellation of cylindrical lanterns dispersed in a continuous green meadow. As is always the case when we try to formalise an architectural idea - often the result of an intuition - it is the analysis of the programme and the site that gives meaning to the specific proposal. We divided the building into two large, interconnected areas: the interchange-parking area and the museum. The steep slope between the east and west ends of the site suggests the possibility of taking an average level of reference in the park so that the garage is developed practically at street level, thus remaining semi-buried and hidden from view.The Museum and Visitor Centre is essentially organised on a single floor illuminated by large circular courtyards that bring natural light into the interior and allow its independent and controlled use. From the main courtyard emerge - like contemporary cylindrical bastions in a place until recently populated by industrial silos - the most singular and tallest exhibition rooms, which are transformed into the exterior image of the new building.The exhibition area has been conceived on the basis of two types of spaces: one neutral and flexible, suitable for the display of panels, interactive modules or showcases with original pieces, and the other defined by the three cylinders, singular spaces due to their shape and size, suitable for audiovisual installations and projections. The largest of these is a large "black box" measuring 500 m2 and 10m in height, which will house museum installations using new media and technologies.Las torres que emergen del jardín están recubiertas exteriormente con una malla de acero corten que incorpora iluminación artificial que en la noche alumbrará el nuevo parque. El Museo de la Historia de Lugo supondrá la experiencia de un paseo por un paisaje vegetal y metálico, un campo lumínico cuyo resplandor parecerá emerger desde el interior de la tierra evocando imágenes de prados y cuevas, de murallas y torreones -metáforas de un paisaje y una cultura que los lucenses llevan dentro de su propia memoria.(Description by Nieto&Sobejano)