Kengo Kuma expands CAM in Lisbon

A Kengo Kuma & Associates–designed growth and reorganization of CAM (Centro de Arte Moderna) opens to the general public this September. The mission modernizes and expands the exhibition areas devoted to the modern artwork of Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Basis, held inside Leslie Martin’s 1983 stepped concrete constructing. However Kuma additionally reconfigures CAM throughout the Gulbenkian panorama, opening it as much as new southern gardens and forging hyperlinks to surrounding streets and communities.

The Gulbenkian Basis, based in 1969, is situated north of Lisbon’s historic metropolis middle. The modernist advanced homes a museum, artwork library, and workplaces designed round sturdy visible connections between inside and backyard. The CAM arrived later, appearing as a bookend to the southern portion of the location: Martin’s Brutalist structure steps up from the park and decorative lake earlier than turning its again to the south.

When the inspiration not too long ago acquired the big part of southern gardens straight behind CAM, which had been beforehand privately owned and walled off, a contest was launched to reimagine the museum and resolve the predicament of it appearing as a barrier between the historic north campus and the brand new southern growth. Kuma’s successful scheme proposed an unlimited curved roof operating alongside your complete southern facade to melt the north campus’s stark relationship to the brand new gardens, making a sheltered area underneath which CAM guests can expertise the expanded panorama.

The sweeping roof will not be merely a gestural kind, although. It’s a recent tackle the standard Japanese engawa—a slender, lined veranda appearing as a transitory area between inside and exterior. As CAM neared completion, Kengo Kuma and Rita Topa, associate at Kengo Kuma & Associates and lead architect for the mission, led a hard-hat preview of the museum. Kuma advised me he has included engawas into earlier initiatives, however “this mission is perhaps the largest.” He then paused, as if considering the size. “Sure, that is the largest engawa.”

At 330 ft in size, the shape feels huge when seen from a distance. However when strolling underneath its low-slung swoop, the brand new veranda has a sense of lightness akin to a canvas awning. The highest of the construction is an array of white ceramic tiles—a cloth each Portugal and Japan share a historic love for and which Kuma feels displays a “sympathy between the 2 international locations.”

From the within, as an alternative of merely providing a picture-window framing of future gardens, Kuma hopes that the brand new roof construction “creates a brand new expertise to pay attention the feel of the backyard.” This can be a panoramic proposition that panorama architect Vladimir Djurovic in comparison with the horizontality of Japanese scroll portray, although the perform of the engawa isn’t solely aesthetic: An indent within the roof channels rainwater right into a dry stream under, related to the property’s irrigation system. “The structure is shaping the design of the backyard, and the panorama is shaping the structure,” the Lebanese panorama designer mentioned, “so the relationships have gotten much more holistic.”

Kuma has situated CAM’s cavernous new galleries and a community of ancillary areas underground. “We didn’t need to make a brand new constructing,” Kuma advised me of the choice to retain most of Martin’s unique massing and dig down, not construct out into the gardens. “We simply wished so as to add relationships to the constructing.” This implies Djurovic has been capable of plan a big backyard, rigorously designed to fuse with the present Gulbenkian panorama, and construct upon the topology of the inherited web site. “All of the pathways are outlined by the present timber,” he mentioned, “and we’re slowly transitioning a decorative backyard into a completely native habitat that amplifies the native species as a lot as attainable.”

A brand new pedestrian entrance results in CAM and the Gulbenkian, radically altering the connection of the cultural advanced to the town. “You’ll really feel as in case you’re shifting by way of a forest,” Djurovic mentioned. The stroll’s remaining visible reveal would be the solar reflecting from the engawa’s stark white tiles.

Will Jennings is a London-based artwork and structure author, editor of recessed. area, director of arts charity Hypha Studios, and educator at UCL and the College of Greenwich.