Image courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group

ArtA by BIG+Allard architecture

BIG+Allard architecture, along with three other international firms, have unveiled their proposal for ArtA, a 8,000 sqm cultural hub on the edge of the river Rhine in Arnhem, the Netherlands. ArtA connects the city with its waterfront and marries two archetypes, a film theater with an art museum.

Image courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group

ArtA will house the Museum Arnhem and the Focus Film Theater in a new cultural facility. Attractively located at the waterfront, the axis of the site forms a symbolic connection between the historic city center and the river Rhine. BIG proposes a simple building volume with two poles: The Film Theater facing the city and the Art Museum facing the river.

Image courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group

Merging a contemporary exhibition facility with a film theater in a vibrant public building is a paradoxical challenge: Contemporary art galleries are characterized by the spatial qualities of industrial warehouses: large open floor plans with generous ceiling heights and great flexibility for internal divisions and daylight control. The film theater, on the other hand, is inherently a black box – an introvert space for contemplation and focus.

Image courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group

A simple twist of the building volume generates a diagonal public art plaza that connects the ground floor with the winter garden and the restaurant on roof top. The building becomes a unique offspring – at once organic and rational, transparent and solid, unique and flexible, extrovert and introvert.

Image courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group

The building has two types of facades: One face of the building is glazed, creating a twisting window allowing daylight and breathtaking views for all gathering spaces of the building; it continues around the cascading Art Plaza, ending as a glazed roof top covering a winter garden, overlooking the city. The solid parts of the building are clad in in-situ cast concrete.The twist creates a covered public space for outdoor art installations and ArtA’s main entrance which will activate the street.

more. www.big.dk