Open depot building Collectiegebouw is the first building in which the extensive art collection owned by the City of Rotterdam will be publicly accessible. Visitors will see in the building what is normally backstage activity: restoration, transport, maintenance and storage of art. Unique is the public private collaboration, private collectors can rent space in the building and can buy the expertise of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen for the maintenance of their collections.
“It is fantastic that the public art depot will be realised,” says Winy Maas, principal architect and co-founder of MVRDV. “In this way the entire population can share something that is normally hidden behind closed doors.”
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s director Sjarel Ex is happy with the decision: “We would like to thank everybody involved in the process. Through wide feedback and many voices the Collectiegebouw has developed into this unique concept.”“With Collectiegebouw Rotterdam creates an icon the entire city will benefit of,” says Rotterdam City Councillor Adriaan Visser. “The building will strengthen the cultural cluster around Museumpark and add to a lively inner city, this is important to attract and maintain the higher educated and investors.”
The new typology of a public art depot with room for private collections, a sculpture park on the roof has a budget of 50 million Euro. The design of a cylindrical volume optimises the façade surface. This volume is serviced by an ascending route around a central atrium which ends on the roof, location of the restaurant and the sculpture park. The trees which currently occupy the location are moved onto the roof which acts as a raised park. By cladding the façade with reflective glass the surrounding area is mirrored and the building seems to fade in its environment.
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen provides a comprehensive survey of European art from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. The museum is located in a monumental building whose current art depot is below sea level and is thus at risk of flooding. The new art depot is an ambitious plan to not only provide a safe storage but also to open the art depot and its collection to the public, to let the depot participate in the cultural life of the city.
In the coming months the project organisation (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam City Council and Foundation De Verre Bergen) will be selecting a contractor through a tender procedure. Construction is expected to start in the autumn of 2016. After the construction period the move of approximately 75,000 works of art will follow. At the end of 2018 the Collectiegebouw will open its doors to visitors.
MVRDV was set up in 1993 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. MVRDV engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A research based and highly collaborative design method engages experts from all fields, clients and stakeholders in the creative process. The results are exemplary and outspoken buildings, urban plans, studies and objects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.
Early projects by the office, such as the headquarters for the Dutch Public Broadcaster VPRO and WoZoCo housing for the elderly in Amsterdam lead to international acclaim. MVRDV develops its work in a conceptual way in which the changing conditions are visualised and discussed through designs, sometimes literally through the design and construction of a diagram. The office continues to pursue its fascination for and methodical research on density using a method of shaping space using the complex amounts of data that accompany contemporary building and design processes.The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published worldwide and has received numerous international awards. Over one hundred architects, designers and other staff develop projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process which involves rigorous technical and creative investigation.
MVRDV works with BIM and has official in-house BREEAM and LEED assessors. Together with Delft University of Technology, MVRDV runs The Why Factory, an independent think tank and research institute providing an agenda for architecture and urbanism by envisioning the city of the future.
http://www.mvrdv.nl
