papalampropoulos syriopoulou

Status: Architectural Competition/ Republic of Cyprus, Ministry of transport, communications and works
Program: The New Archaeological Museum of Cyprus
Year: 2017
Location: Nicosia, Cyprus
Architect: Leonidas Papalampropoulos, Georgia Syriopoulou

Project team: Alexis Tsakalakis-Karkas
 

​

The evolution of the museum typology is manifested in a process through which the traditional archival and scientific character of the museum is slightly mutated into a hybrid programmatic complex that attempts to reshape the public realm.
This new complex defies the functional-single building approach and emerges as an "urban artifact".

​

 

The Museum as "URBAN ARTIFACT" / the CIRCLE & the GRID

​

Following the paradigm of Nicosia's walled city where a military infrastructure-acting as an "urban artifact" - organized the old city beyond its former function, the New Cyprus museum attempts to reshape the city's public life in the form of an infrastructural project.

The new structure meteorises between the necessity of an enclosed specific program (the museum) and the openness and ambiguity of a green recreational social space (the garden) that connects the public route from Pedieos River to the Old City Center. 

In order to synthesize these two contradictory types of space, the design appropriates the paradigm of the WALLED GARDENS as the means to articulate a coherent new urban typology.

 The city's green route is extended inside the museum site by inserting a grid system - a method similar to the archeological excavation process - in the form of intersecting walls, that shapes enclosures, gardens and harvests light for the museum exhibition spaces underneath. 
In the same way that the circle stood as a symbol of the old city, the GRID is the symbol of the new urban condition.

​

 

The "JANUS" Condition

​

The Museum is formed by a Janus Diagram (half Museum - half Garden) that creates two distinct but equally important sectors shaped by the grid: 
(i) a lower Memory Space for the Museum Exhibition (PAST). 
(ii) an upper Performative Space for the  Enclosed Gardens - outdoor rooms that can serve as experimental temporary art and archeological exhibition spaces. (FUTURE)

​

 

The Gardens

​

The upper part of the complex is dedicated to an experimental non-functional, non-specific outdoor public space that forms the core of the proposal; a space that is looking towards the future through a process of try and error.
The walls serve as light-wells that illuminate the underground exhibition spaces and at the same time form ROOMS that can be occupied differently by the community to host public events, contemporary exhibitions, leisure activities or serve as "not yet established archeological exhibition protocols" referred here as "non sites". Additionally, the outdoor spaces are supplemented with permanent functions such as the Cafe, the Conference Hall, The Library, the Department of Antiquities and the Administration.

​

 

The Museum

​

The lower part forms an underground yet naturally illuminated exhibition space as light becomes the connecting element between the two sectors.
The enclosures form distinct thematic exhibition rooms; an inverted space oriented towards the past, resembling the process of memory. The archeological grid provides the canvas to perform a time based wandering in the architectural structure.
The spaces with low natural light accessibility are exploited for low light requirement exhibitions (special displays, multimedia, interactive etc).

The laboratories and the storage are located adjacent to the exhibition space with natural light provided by the light-wells and 3 atriums. 
At the east side, a large ramp (5%slope) connects the museum lobby to the existing museum and the old city sector.