Hide & Seek in Frames

Museum Archive Extension: A new understanding of framing under the “New Brutalism”

Instructor: Emmett Zeifman

Fall 2019

The initial inspiration comes from the play “Hide and Seek”. When people are curious to know something, they actively wonder and act to find things out. Museum archive as a building typology is the space for human curiosity. People come to seek information and emotion finally lead to body motion. Thus, the idea of layering the frameworks is to slightly hide the artefacts in a way that stimulates and enhances people’s curiosity at each moment of experiencing the space.

The shapes and the layout of the columns are designed to be a hook device to not only raise people’s curiosity but also lead them to seek the hidden moments in the building. Specifically, the outer layer uses the repetitive slender columns to create a sensual moment of the solid facade from the street perspectives and the inner triangular columns generate the diagonal viewpoints to make people turn and move. In order to accommodate the different floor heights of the two wings and the grids, there are some hidden mezzanine floors and hidden rooms that need visitors to explore.

The outer columns can be regarded as a modern extension of the original museum facade across the three faces. And the grid of the columns originates from the grid of the old museum. In addition, the T shape of the figure-ground (the footprint) forms two different courtyards serving different functions. The left courtyard is intended to be more private and calm since the offices and administrations of the original programs were set to the left-wing.