Children's Museum of Bologna
Bologna, Italy
Category Cultural
Job type 3rd Prize, International Competition
Date 2022
Size 1,495 m²
Client Municipality of Bologna
Collaborators Mynd Ingegneria | aRE - Arquitectura en Estudio
Status Competition
Articulating the public space
The proposal for the Children's Museum of Bologna integrates with the linear identity of the central public space of the Pilastro area. Through the program's division into different pavilions, it creates a complex of interconnected public buildings along the central axis of Pilastro's central park. The project connects and integrates the Yellow House and the Luigi Spina Library, two community landmarks, within a new civic centrality for the community and the city.
A park museum
The pavilions articulate around the existing buildings and integrate fluidly with the park using transparent connections. The limits between the interior and the exterior are diffuse, the museum is permeated by the park. This articulation around the trees frees space for a central square for the community, with access to the Museum, the Yellow House, and the Library.
The connected skyline of towers and pitched roofs dialogues with the tradition and story of Bologna.
The treehouse
Inspired by the ideas of children from the community, the pavilions connect as treehouses: wooden boxes elevated within the park trees.
The proposal is a"fascinating suggestion expressed in a dualism between articulated volumes and their distribution system."
Jury report
Natural game
The Museum embodies the nature of game. The pavilions are set like flexible puzzle pieces in a free game environment. The final shape of the museum is the result of the composition and relation of the pieces with the park elements.
Pavilions
The pavilions are a free reinterpretation of the treehouse idea: a light and transparent lower body and a heavier upper part, with colored wood. That in the Museum complements the green of the park, the yellow of the house, and the red of the library.
Treetop playground
The treehouses connect to create a small urban network, a child-friendly city inserted within Pilastro with direct visual relations with the city skyline, the trees' canopy, and the playful profile of the pavilions' skylights.
Each pavilion has a unique identity and use. Multiple activities are hosted on the two floors of each volume. On the ground floor, they are linked directly to the open spaces of the park, and on the upper floor with the distant visuals of the park surroundings and landscape.
The City and Citizenship pavilion is the main entrance to the museum. It presents the museum to the community and vice-versa. In the exhibition area, children interact with one another in a small-scale city.
The Space pavilion creates opportunities for children to explore in a tactile experience the relation between their bodies and space, their closer space, and the exterior space. On the ground floor, the little ones open their areas to the external sensory garden.
The Memory pavilion is dedicated to memory and identity. An immersive exhibition area plays with modules, reflections, and textures to invite children to be aware of themselves as well as the facade layout frames details of the surroundings to connect with the community identity. There, on the ground floor food-related activities are open to the community for the members bonding.
TALLER Architects
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