Picasso Museum Annex | Garcés - De Seta - Bonet, Arquitectes

PICASSO MUSEUM ANNEX Annex Building to the Picasso Museum of Barcelona - ENG - - ENG - The new construction that comprises the Annex to the Picasso Museum with façades on both the Plaza of Jaume Sabertés and Flassaders Street will contain a program of great importance for the projection of the Museum for the city’s inhabitants. It is not a space intended for the exhibition of Picasso’s work, yet one where complementary activities focus on study, research, and museological investigations related to Picasso and his works that further the connection between the Museum and the city. On the ground floor there are 4 zones where educational activities can be carried out in flexible spaces with varying degrees of privacy or separation. The Museum Library is located on the first floor. On the basement level are the mechanical installations, non-art warehouse space, and lockers and lounge zones for personnel. The building is conceived as a container organized about a transversal lightwell that carries natural light from the exterior to both the first and the ground floor. These lightwells correspond with the originating lines of the new structural system. Upon reaching the roof level, the space is reflected in outward volumes that help to formalize the upper level of the space. The main façade on the Plaza Sabartés defines the new plan of the composition, independent of the current Museum but with a narrow relation established through their close proximity. It’s great glass curtain wall is protected by an overhanging roof that opens outward toward the city. This way the new building enables the visual continuity between the Museum’s garden and the urban plaza, both designed as complementary parts. The other two façades, on Flassaders Street and the one facing the Museum garden are more hermetic insomuchas their attention to the private world created within the interior of the volume. Two materials assure the survival of the building within this urban context while they add a complexity to its vision: the stone on the ground level and the stucco on the upper. The Plaza Jaume Sabertés is converted in the principal access to the museum complex and will be the indispensible classic exterior space that receives the visitors like so many museums of such great public attendance.