Museums and adaptive reuse – 9 projects shortlisted for EU Mies Award 2019

Museums and adaptive reuse – 9 projects shortlisted for EU Mies Award 2019

The jury of the 2019 edition of the EU Mies Award 2019, one of the world’s most recognized architectural awards, has released the list of the 40 projects selected for the final phase.
Overall, adaptive reuse seems to be a common trait of many among the 40 shortlisted works selected by the jury composed of Dorte Mandrup, George Arbid, Angelika Fitz, Ștefan Ghenciulescu, Kamiel Klaasse, María Langarita, and Frank McDonald. The EU Mies Award 2019 shortlist includes 12 museums and/or cultural centers, all built in a European country, nine of which involve the reuse/regeneration/expansion of old buildings.

Civic Centre Lleialtat Santsenca (2017, Barcelona, Spain)
Designed by the Catalan architectural office Harquitectes, it’s a civic and cultural center involving the reuse and renovation of Lleialtat Santsenca, a 1928 working-class cooperative building in the Sants neighborhood.

Harquitectes, Civic Centre Lleialtat Santsenca, Barcelona, 2017. Photo © Adrià Goula. Courtesy of EU Mies Award 2019.

The Perret Hall – Cultural Center (2018, Montataire, France)
The project – developed by architects Pierre Hebbelinck, Heleen Hart, and Mathieu Berteloot – is based on the renovation and extension of a 1920s disused industrial building made in reinforced concrete – known as Perret Hall – to transform it into a 2276-square-meter cultural center housing a music school, a dance school, a broadcast room, and a recording studio.

Above and cover image: Pierre Hebbelinck, Heleen Hart, and Mathieu Berteloot, Perret Hall Cultural Center, Montataire, 2018;. Photos © François Brix. Courtesy of EU Mies Award 2019

Museum of Arts (2017, Nantes, France)
Following an architectural competition won by London-based Stanton Williams Architects, the old Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes has been transformed into a state-of-the-art museum of fine arts. The project included the renovation and underground expansion of the late-19th-century building of the museum and the construction of two new extensions – a gallery for contemporary art and an archive building.

Stanton Williams Architects, Museum of Arts, Nantes, 2017. Photo © Hufton+Crow. Courtesy of EU Mies Award 2019

M9 Museum District (2018, Venice, Italy)
The M9 museum designed by Sauerbruch Hutton architects is the centerpiece of the ambitious urban renovation project of a former military area, aimed to create a new cultural district in Venice Mestre, which also included the refurbishment of a 16th-century monastery. Inexhibit visited the M9 museum recently, you can find our full review here: M9 – Museum of the 20th Century, Venice Mestre

Sauerbruch Hutton, M) Museum District, Venice, 2018. Photo ©Riccardo Bianchini / Inexhibit

Lafayette Anticipations (2017, Paris, France)
Lafayette Anticipation is a small tower conceived by OMA to accommodate special exhibitions of art. Installed in the small courtyard of an 1891 former industrial building located in Paris’ Marais neighborhood, converted by OMA into a center for the arts, the tower is a flexible and re-configurable exhibition space with mobile floors that provides many different spatial configurations.

OMA, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, 2017. Photo © DSL Studio. Courtesy of EU Mies Award 2019

Visitor Center Park Vijversburg (2017, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands)
This small visitor center – designed by Dutch practice Studio Maks for the Vijversburg Park, a late 18th-century estate that hosts art exhibitions, musical concerts, and live performances – consists of a renovated neoclassical villa and an expansion, a 290-square-meter glass-and-steel pavilion meandering through the park.

Studio Maks, Visitor center park Vijversburg,  Leeuwarden, 2017. Photo © Iwan Baan. Courtesy of EU Mies Award 2019

St. Mary’s Medieval Mile Museum (2017, Kilkenny, Ireland)
Designed by McCullough Mulvin Architects, the project of restoration, renovation, and extension of the 13th-century St. Mary’s Church in Kilkenny has converted the historical building of the church into a museum. The new interventions, which replaced the church’s aisle and chancel, are made of materials, timber, and lead, reminiscent of the architecture, colors, and traditional building materials of Kilkenny’s medieval architecture.

McCullough Mulvin Architects, St. Mary’s Medieval Mile Museum, Kilkenny, 2017; photo © Christian Richters. Courtesy of EU Mies Award 2019

14 Henrietta Street (2017, Dublin, Ireland)
Restored after a design by Shaffrey Architects, 14 Henrietta Street was a beautiful Georgian house dating, back to the late 1740s and abandoned in 1979. This carefully refurbished house has been converted into a museum that tells the story of the people who lived in it and that of the social and urban transformation of the city of Dublin.

Shaffrey Architects, 14 Henrietta Street, Dublin, 2017; photo © Paul Tierney. Courtesy of EU Mies Award 2019

Reconstruction of the Museum of Contemporary Art (2018, Belgrade, Serbia)
The Museum of Contemporary Art of Belgrade was designed by architects Ivanka Raspopović and Ivan Antić in the 1960s as a futuristic “infinitely expandable” modular museum. After being closed for over ten years, the renovation and modernization project by Nooto and Dejan Todorović has finally led to the reopening of one of the most visionary museum buildings in Eastern Europe.

Nooto and Dejan Todorović, Reconstruction of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, 2018; photo © Relja Ivanić. Courtesy of EU Mies Award 2019