The design of an entrance building for the Open-Air Museum in Arnhem is the subject of the Prix de Rome competition in March 1995. The museum visualizes Dutch culture and history from the year 1700 to the present day. One wanders on 109 acres, in the middle of nature, in between eighty objects - farms, windmills, laborer’s houses and so forth – which make Dutch history tangible. We designed a tunnel in the shape of a funnel that doesn’t compete with the contents of the museum: the funnel is only visible as interior space, not as a building.
The Open-Air Museum can be seen as the destination of a journey through time. The entrance building is like a time machine, symbolized by a trip through space. The lighting and transparency of the tunnel allow an inviting view from the exterior into the inside. The curved shape of the floor amplifies the optional perspective. This shape lends an exciting feeling to the tunnel because the space is never entirely visible from any viewpoint. At the end of a day in the past a broad view of the current time is awaiting over the spherical slope of the floor.
In the entrance building a wardrobe, toilets, a coffeeshop and shops have their place. Above the ceiling and under the floor level, offices and stock rooms are located. On the wide front a large roof gives car and bus visitors a covered entrance. In the closing season the space can be used for conferences, lectures, performances, receptions, and parties.
The tunnel has a convex construction of prestressed concrete, which in a curved form can deal with great force and therefore stretch over vast spaces. One has the feeling the forces of the construction are optically readable from the shape of the space. The long funnel is adapting to the green surroundings of the forest: the exterior part of the tunnel is kept rough and unfinished. Thus, it forms a basis for the growth of succulents, mosses and climbing in a camouflage pattern.
On the inside the tunnel is thermically isolated and covered with rubber. This material combines characteristics like dark as the cosmic void, malleable as plastic space and dim to give a diffuse reflection of light and sound.
Polyps on the walls, the floor and the ceiling are sources of sound and light. In form they reflect the craters on the floor. Following a very conscientiously planned scenario they create a surreal atmosphere in which light, sound, smell, temperature, and movement of air intensify each other. That way they variously stimulate and relax the senses. With a dual goal: to accentuate the dynamics of the space and the time travel, and to sublimate the contrast with the idyllic surroundings.
Concept Design
PRIX DE ROME 1995
Entrance open air museum Arnhem NL
3D visuals: C3D
Plan 4250 M2, 24.300 M3
Funnel 3750 M2, 22.500 M3
Office and stockrooms 500 M2, 1800 M3
Length 105 M
Width 66M –> 6M
Height 7,5 M –> 2,5 M