HORIZON | Boris Bernaskoni

BERNASKONI project team
architects: Boris Bernaskoni, Olga Treiwas, Anna Filodor
consulting: Konstantin Sokolov, Alexander Shamenkov, Yulia Filippova

- The line at which the earth’s surface and the sky appear to meet
- (Horizons) the limit of a person’s mental perception, experience, or interest
- Geology a layer of soil or rock, or a set of strata, with particular characteristics. Archaeology a level of an excavated site representing a particular period.

PERMMUSEUMXXI architecture
The museum as unanimity of culture and nature – a simple monolith volume cut into the slope of the river bank, and connecting the city and the river. The building as an extension of the environment, not a static sculpture. The museum building as a prism of time and space. The building as a space sign. The museum building as an extension of the city. The inside space starts from the outside. The museum as the information carrier. All the surfaces of the museum work: the fifth façade is a square; navigation texts are on all the surfaces. The museum as a temple of arts, research centre (history of culture, R&D, collection), production (producing creative messages). The museum as a club: architecture, arts, history, ballet, cinema, children, fashion, street art, city events. Europe and Asia.

Place and Location
The museum building is located between the upper site of the Okulov street, the Kama river embankment and the Reshetnikovsky Spusk street. It is a five-tier parallelepiped with the upper tier as a plateau providing a panoramic sight to the city. Thus, the museum keeps wide visual prospect for future inhabited complex Kama Gate and creates additional active city territory. The building of a museum incorporates city transport streams and its agents become pedestrians, cars, trains, the ships. The mooring, the railway platform, the bus terminal make a museum complex multifunctional and, being its extension, expand its influence on the city environment.

Façade
The facade is executed as an independent shell from glass of a various transparency. Plates of glass cover the body of the building along the whole perimeter. Transparency and light-scattering parameters of plates are selected according to the functions of premises. The glass shell targets a number of purposes: heat-shielding, light controlling with protection against direct sunlight, and decorative – it creates a play of light and gives lightness to the building. In the afternoon the glass shell lets the light inside, and it shines from within at night.

Tiers
The building of a museum consists of five tiers (horizons), each of which functionally corresponds to its time cycle. If horizon 1, located on the upper floor is a level of rapid events: the tourist center, a conference hall, design rooms, one-day exhibitions; then horizon 5, located on the lower floor at water is a level of slower processes. The visitor first gets on horizon_1 in the Intrоduction Area: tourist center, the cafe, design premises and a shopping area, and then, having bought the ticket and having passed a wardrobe, goes down to horizon_2 – the main foyer. Here the visitor finds himself between a window screen and a museum menu. By the text on a wall he defines where to move further. On horison_2, there are: temporary exhibitions, a children’s museum, a media library, the center of the modern arts and an exit onto a platform to street art. The Block “Event area” has an access from horison_1 and from the main foyer. A wide staircase leads downwards to horison_3 defining the main, central part of a museum space. On horison_3, the basic collections of a museum are located. Its space split into areas by bearing walls can also change by means of temporary partitions. Horison_4 is intended for storage and museum workshops. This storey is designed so as to limit free access to the basic storehouses and to arrange all services according to the cardinal points for correct illumination. Horison_5 is intended for museum and development projects lasting for 3-5 years, and allowing to carry out economically effective projects combined with the museum activity. For example, as a pilot one a project ArtHotelTM based on its own universal platform, and accommodating workshops, cafe, a cinema and shops/galleries can be offered.

Light
The building of a museum is located so as not to let direct solar beams get into showrooms and workshops. Therefore, light facades of the museum are facing all the cardinal points but the south. Showrooms combine natural scattered illumination with artificial by means of overhead and wall a daylight illumination. Internal and external systems of illumination of the building serve for additional light decoration of the museum projects.

Materials: Concrete, steel, glass.

PERMMUSEUMXXI formula 4+1
1. Place
The building of a museum, cut into a coastal line, leaves a wide spatial prospect to new city quarters. Running to the river, the museum creates a unique park zone. The roof-plateau becomes the best viewing site of the city. The building serves simultaneously as a museum, the area for city events, a railway platform, a mooring and a descent of the pedestrians to water. Forming a new transport terminal, the museum building becomes a point of attraction not only for the city of Perm, but also for the whole region.
2. Communication
The highway, the railway and the river are organically built into the structure of the museum. They provide public transport which connects the museum and the city: a train, a boat, a bus. A platform, a mooring, and a bus stop are the extension of the museum. The railway platform is an area of street art – graffiti, the bus stop is an art-object, the underground parking lot and the mooring are an area for installations. The facades located above the river, roads and the embankment become information panels – a space for light art-projects.
3. Traffic
The motion path of visitors, personnel and exhibits are divided into separate streams and do not cross. Each stream has its own entrance and a system of vertical and horizontal communications for convenience of movement. Lifts and the ramps indispensable for moving of invalids are stipulated.
4. Language
The building of a museum is designed as the spatial menu. Beginning from the entrance, the space itself leads the visitor and he only needs to choose a route from the offered variants of graphic navigation. New graphic language and navigation in the museum space are developed. Their carriers are the facades, the walls, the floor and the ceiling. The communication space of the museum is designed in the form of a text menu.
5. Development
The park zone released due to displacement of a spot of construction, and the fifth horizon (tier) of a museum are a universal space for implementing fast commercial and development projects within the limits of the museum strategy. The fifth tier can be used for ArtHotelTM, workshops, a universal hall, and a gallery passage.

PERMMUSEUMXXI concept
Similarly to the city of Perm, who due to its geographical position has combined and absorbed history and culture of Europe and Asia, the museum is to preserve and present the symbolic essence of the city and to become a prism of time and space. This understanding releases us from the traditional perception of a museum as a collection of historical exhibits only and is embodied in the architecture of the building – its multifunctional elements, information supply, interactive and courteous attitude to the city and visitors. Thus, the inside space starts from the outside – all the outer surfaces of the museum work as colour and light information and navigation carriers. The fifth façade is a square transforming the museum into the extension of the city, which gives the visitors a feeling of affiliation with a social club combining history, street arts, ballet, cinema, fashion, children, architecture, and city events. In addition, the museum architecture involves transportation component, the building being a transport knot consolidating four transportation systems: pedestrian, bus, railway, and water, which makes the project more client-oriented and attractive, as well as allows to optimize work and recreation streams of visitors. At the same time, the inside structure of the building provides both for RD and Development spaces-transformers, which can be adapted to various tasks connected to urban development projects. On top of that, the museum has an educational function: while acquainting visitors with the history and the future of the city and the country it is to cultivate creative and constructive outlook; therefore, the museum building is realized as unanimity of culture and nature without an urbanization sign in a simple monolith form cut into the slope of the river bank and connecting the city and the river. To sum up, the architecture of the museum building is based on its functional feature:
Museum as a symbol
Museum as unity of culture and nature
Museum as a parent and mentor
Museum as developing environment
Museum as information supplier
Museum as the city extension
Museum as a club
Museum as R&D and Development
Museum as a transportation knot