DESIGN STRATEGIES
DESIGN STRATEGIES
When it comes to reintroducing an existing building into the future, the same question always arises: what to preserve and what to change? Where to be respectful to the existing situation and the stories it bears with it, and where to be bold and bring a new flavor to the mix, one that will help the building adapt and thrive ?
Our thoroughly detailed proposal for the relaunching of the Archaeological Museum of Nestor, the legendary Myceanean King we read about on Homer’s Iliade, is dealing precisely with this problem - preservation vs. adaptation. The building is located in Southern Peloponnese, the cradle of the Mycenaean Civilization (approx 2 millenium BC), and is an austere modernist piece from the late 60’s. It is essentially a succession of chambers, equivalent to a succession of spaces at the actual palace, who’s ruin lies only a few kilometers away.
Our concept is to reintroduce the museum to contemporary visitors by focusing less directly on the “Myceanean” or the “Modern” but to the “Bronze Age”, being the term that international visitors most likely know and relate to. For this reason, we dress the building with brass elements such as railings and skylight louvers with simple linear arrays, consistent with the modernist idiom of the building as is today.
TEAM: Kostas Poulopoulos, Phivos Sigalas, Panos Giokas Visuals: Konstantinos Koudounis, Thanos Lefakis