KENGO KUMA & ASSOCIATES

new MCBA . PÔLE MUSEAL ET CULTUREL . Lausanne

courtesy of KENGO KUMA & ASSOCIATES

The new MCBA goal is to offer a maximum permeability with the city, a building which answers to the specific program constraints, but also to the site special features. A very iconic volume from the train but still well integrated in the Lausanne city landscape, hidden by its own streets system and highly marked levels variations. As a will to offer as much public space and direct city connections as possible, the new MCBA offers in a very natural way its own roof to go down to the museum core, through a path where the roof constitutes a belvedere from which the visitor can catch sight and discover the city as well as the lake.

LANDSCAPE : THE RAILROADS
The landscape treatment respects completely the actual site. The existing railroads dynamism makes the landscape crossing easier through the museum as well as the site, while organizing the interior space and circulations. The project is all about making the simplest, the most obvious, while exploiting the beauty and potentiality of the existing through a sustainable approach.

MCBA : CONCEPT
A new museum interpretation as a continuous linear path space associated to a loop in order to organize the circulations.
1. The length of the locomotives body as a metaphor for the train movement; a train which modifies its path to connect with the city where passengers can come in. According to this, the rails are breaking up and rotating in order to connect with the high city level at as many available points as possible.

2. The locomotives body section as a metaphor for the train section. Beginning with the existing section in order to respect the actual building, the section then transforms itself and rotates, offering then more flexible spaces accompanying other occupying possibilities and bringing a richness from which the exhibition rooms can benefit.