Precedent Study

Looking at Kolumba museum, Koln, by Peter Zumthor to help with an analysis of space. The Kolumba museum by Zumthor is a journey through a series of spaces varying in size and shape. The spaces are open volumes intersected with rendered volumes which contain the space. At particular moments along a journey a view is framed through a window. The spaces and journey are highly structured, despite the openness of the architecture. The volumes of the rooms in the building seem to float in space, and the movement through the space is articulated through the movement of these volumes around you. This sense of movement, materiality, mass as one moves through the museum is a feeling I wish to apply to my building underneath the car park. At the moment to help what these places could feel like I am producing a series of photomontages as well as models of the interior spaces to help we with decisions.

The journey constructed by Zumthor in the Kolumba museum is one example of how a journey through a building can involve someone in the architecture of a place. However I feel the space of the car park can offer much more, in terms of the relationships between a person, a building, a place and a city. The framed views, the old and new, the structure, the volumes can all be used and the relationships between them and a person can be articulated through a journey.

One place I have visited wherein the relationships between a place and its environment and the journey through the two articulate them is St Davids Cathedral in South Wales. As a brief study I looked at how the relationships between a place, its spaces and its history is articulated through the journey you take to get there. In St Davids for example the old entrance to the site is the same as the one taken by pilgrims hundreds of years ago. How does one make an entrance to a building so special and important that it will remain the same for hundreds of years to come, even if the use or architecture of the building changes? On the journey to St Davids too, at a particular moment traveling through the city, one catches a glimpse of the cathedral tower, juxtaposed against the roofline of the new houses of the city. In this moment one understands the spatial and temporal relationship between the city and its cathedral. I did initially look at how the landscape of the surrounding areas of the cathedral could literally be translated into a program for the assembly hall. After a discussion with my tutor I came to the conclusion that literally translating the relationships between a place and its landscape into a building program strategy was very difficult.

I want to transpose these moments into a building so that perhaps, one catches a glimpse of the old structure and roof, contrasted against a new wall and the view of the city outside. A final view could be, the old, the new, the city and the journey. Maybe a view of the entrance to the building somehow.