SCANALATURE

International Competition “New Cyprus Archaelological Museum”


with Amid. cero9, Javier Casado



What if the main feature of the proposal is to provide the city with two new public spaces: a vast, big interior and an open public square? The Museum hence steps backwards to create a preliminary square in front of the building in correspondence with the building of the Parliament; a public space that the city is lacking nowadays connecting the four most important public buildings in Nicosia in coordination and as an extension of the Venetian Walls natural setting and making sure that the connection between the New Cyprus Museum with the old one is properly articulated.

A spacious, pleasant and welcoming space open to the city that blurs the notion of museum; more than just a touristic attraction this new public space for Nicosia is a place for gathering, for sharing experiences, enjoying events and participating in the cultural life of the island.

What if the sunken garden is an inverse ruin where ghosts of future buildings grow? The museum is surrounded by a series of gardens based on the same formal mechanisms than the main building. As in an archaeological garden the formal gardens that build spaces with vegetation and low walls will become the expansion of the Museum. The ruins will serve therefore as formal and material bases for the future constructions, inverting the arrow of time: reversed ruins of the future.


What if this series of pieces of extravagant forms, almost like pop ruins, will complete the exhibition programme?.
Constructed with lightweight materials and saturated colours, taken from decorative languages present in the museum pieces, almost like a set of found objects around the big eroded column these pieces could serve to test out curatorial innovations, such as the possibility of showing in depth one by one the most important pieces of the Museum and their historical and material context.