New Art Gallery UGM – Maribor, Slovenia

The New Maribor Art Gallery is conceived as a horizontal structure that foregrounds both the art exhibited and the social activities taking place within the complex. It blends into the city’s topography as well as its open space structure.

The building compound is a criss-cross of visual and civic paths; in its neutral specificity it forms a warehouse-like structure to be actively appropriated by curators and visitors and to remain flexible for changes in the future. A plain operation sets the base. The facade, the gallery’s main light conductor, is drawn inside the volume. The inversions stretch the daylight deep into the building and perform as illumination wells. The pull-ins become structural and form characteristic spaces; they become organizational as they give way to public access from the periphery into the interior of building. Light wells intersect with a manifold of entry points: The combination of movement and illumination strategies forms the basis of a multidirectional field open to the urban and environmental contexts. As building volume the UGM formulates two very distinct urban spaces: the more intimate vestibule that is formed by the Centre for Creative Industries and the new gallery building and the terrace to the river Drava.

 

Open International Competition
Client: City of Maribor
Gross Floor Area: 1.575 m2
Team: Sabine Müller, Andreas Quednau, Robert Gorny, Paola Bagna, Nathan Friedman, Aron Thorsén

architecture, projects, competitions
01/01/2009