MUNICIPAL MUSEUM OF PINHEL
Pinhel, Portugal
2015
1st Prize
Best Work on Museography
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The
Municipal Museum was integrated on the ground floor of newly born Pinhel
House of Culture – an old episcopal palace from the XVII century; it was
partially restored in 2014 and suffered several interventions through the
years, which accommodated the palace to its different functions (since it
served as a military barrack, a police headquarter, a school and a students
residence). The palace was, therefore, subject to an evolutionary but
disfigured narrative.
With that
premise in mind, the main project purpose was not only to incorporate one other
“time” of that evolution but to do it in the opposite sense: by retrieving
former nobility and coherence, that were stolen to the Palace, specially
through XX century.
With a
critic sense, given the state of the building interiors, and the need of an
economic intervention and time viability, both demolition and space exploring
of its textures were the main project themes.
Hence, our
project focused on the equilibrium between the permanency and the retrieving of
the finest kept original traits plus a huge operation of subtraction, cleaning
and extraction of superfluous elements (those that previously mischaracterised
the interiors) in order to create spaces as wide and empty as possible. Afterwards,
in order to draw an expositive pathway, a thick but translucent wall was built,
in order to receive the museulogic collection that tells Pinhel historic human
occupation, along its territories.
With a
split personality the built wall seems, for once, fragile and shy, making the
museum elements float through space and permitting a building cross-sectional
reading; but, in other hand, the wall also looks arrogant and vain, dignified by
being exhibited in a museum.
On its
construction, our proposal follows the line of 2014 previous intervention. Different materials were used, the ones that normally are hidden, like a electro
welded steel mesh (usually inside reinforced concrete), electric piping that
normally is only shown in less noble spaces and, finally, restored furniture or
designed furniture built from scratch wood elements from the demolished parts
of the building.
The results
sum the complex tension amongst various interpretations that the palace had
suffered with the new program that wants to tell simultaneously the building
and territory stories.
Technical information
Architecture and Exhibting Project: depA Architects
MEP: CPX, Ncrep
Museographic project: Glorybox com Eon, Eu Faço, Slice Moments, Bairro Design, Que Cena, GrupoMA e Ams
Photography: José Campos / depA Architects








