The Art Space as Matrix: Kirsten Schemel's Futurist
museum for Nam June Paik in Korea
Last year, the German architect Kirsten Schemel won the international
competition for the Nam June Paik Museum in Korea; planned are spectacular
rooms dedicated to the artist's work. Through June 9, Schemel's
extraordinary architectural design can be viewed in the context of Paik's
exhibition Global Groove 2004 in the Deutsche Guggenheim.
Kirsten
Schemel: Museum for Nam June Paik in Korea, 2003,
cross
section, © Kirsten Schemel
The Deutsche
Guggenheim in Berlin is currently presenting Nam
June Paik's homage to media art with the exhibition Global
Groove 2004, which harks back to the title of his legendary video Global
Groove from 1973. In the museum's foyer, visitors can also gain
insight into an impressive project directly connected to the life work of
the Korean-born artist - the construction of a museum building designed to
house Nam June Paik's video installations. Last year, the Gyeonggi
Cultural Foundation in South Korea
held an international architecture competition for a Nam
June Paik Museum in the city Yong-In,
which is to be dedicated to the work of the world-famous artist and
provide additional space for revolving exhibitions as well as facilities
for multi-media communication, research, and artists' studios. The First
Prize of the competition was awarded to a German participant - the
Berlin-based architect Kirsten
Schemel, who was not only awarded for her unusual design, but has also
been commissioned with the project's realization.
Kirsten
Schemel: Museum for Nam June Paik in Korea, 2003,
main
facade - view from the street, ©Kirsten Schemel
The various spacial planes of the future structure can be studied in
computer-simulated views hanging in the entrance area of the exhibition Global
Groove 2004. NJP_Museum_Matrix, the title of Schemel's design,
refers to the complex construction the architect has developed especially
for this project. Taking a grid model as its point of departure, the
future museum is conceived to wrap over the existing grounds like a Matrix
that incorporates landscape formations on the building site into the
museum's architecture.
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Thus, the curved contours of the surrounding forest
determine lines in the blueprint. The architecture grows, in a sense, out
of the ground and becomes part of the natural park surrounding it.
Kirsten
Schemel: Museum for Nam June Paik in Korea, 2003,
interior
view - exhibition hall, ©Kirsten Schemel
While
the studio, work, and administrative rooms are situated in the front part
of the building, the actual museum is in the back part facing the forest;
it consists of a freely-flowing, uninterrupted exhibition space entirely
without artificial light. Schemel's aim is a radical one; in her design,
the boundaries between interior and exterior become blurred. Instead of a
flat surface, the museum floor follows the irregularities of the ground
like a carpet, curving up and down over existing hills and depressions.
Schemel's interior resembles a landscape, a world within a world modulated
only by the colorful light of the video projections and the daylight
shining in through the roof. The various zones of shadow that arise as
light falls into the so-called Light Matrix, the Futuristic-looking roof
of the museum, are transformed into factors that contribute towards
defining the space, making the museum the ideal setting for Paik's
electronic and projection images.
Kirsten
Schemel: Museum for Nam June Paik in Korea, 2003,
outside
view onto the roof, ©Kirsten Schemel
The entrance front of the museum also expresses the special nature of the
design. The building's main facade extends along the street in a
monumental length of 250 meters, offering, as an "oscillating wall of
light," a preview of what awaits the viewer in the building's interior.
The uniqueness of the building's outer shell, however, is due to the roof,
which extends generously into the landscape, lending the building its
inimitable character. The architect's drawing shows a view of a silvery
shining surface situated in a forest clearing and is reminiscent of a
Futurist version of a romantic landscape
image. Thus, as a reflective "Lake of Light," the museum architecture,
which conceals a "Space of Shadow" inside, becomes the artistic extension
of the nature surrounding it, offering, almost as an afterthought, a
contemporary architectonic interpretation of the modern landscape
garden.
Maria Morais
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