Portfolio - Markus von Dellingshausen

MNBAQ Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec

with OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture
Art museum
Built, 2010 - 2016, Québec City, Canada

I worked on the project: 2011 - 2012
During these project phases:
- Finishing 100% Design Development
- Construction Documents up to 100%, in cooperation with partner office Provencher Roy Architectes Associés in Montréal
My responsibilities: In a small team of three people we developed design solutions for nearly all of the interior spaces, like café, boutique, bathrooms, courtyard, auditorium, coat checks, bars, materials, lighting etc., and also a new concept for the facade and its detailing. We issued all the construction plans up to 100% CD for bidding in March 2012.

The new building for the MNBAQ is an expansion of two already existing historical buildings: the main building (at the lower edge) and the building of the former prison of Québec (above). It enlarges the exhibition space for nearly 80%. The museum’s collection consists of more than 25000 works mainly from the Québec province. All buildings are connected by a tunnel below ground.
The museum is situated on a plain above the Saint Lawrence, amidst Parc des Champs-de-Bataille. The new building takes the space of a former dominican convent, directly next to the church St. Dominique. Its location at the Grande Allée contributes mainly to better linking the whole ensemble with the city.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Context

With its 14m high Grand Hall, the new pavilion opens up to the Grand Allée and creates an expansion of the urban space in the interior. The Grand Hall is an interface that serves as an urban plaza where all public functions of the museum, like café, boutique, auditorium etc. are coming together.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Urbanistic concept

In order to embed the museum into the context, different aspects were taken into consideration: while the Parc des Champs-de-Bataille should be enlarged with the aim to have a certain presence in the building, the design at the same time wants to invite the city into the museum. In addition, the close St. Dominique church should be respected, while nevertheless a certain presence should be created along the Grand Allée.
Nature is literally peeled up, the city enters from the alley, the museum space is framed by these two different poles.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Room program

The urbanistic concept is applied to the room program: it is stacked in three volumes of decreasing size, with the largest area for the temporary exhibition on the ground floor, the permanent exhibition on the second floor, and the Inuit art as well as the design gallery on the third floor. The three volumes form a cascade that ascends from the park to the city. A lateral circulation connects all three parts.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Concept model

The volumes step down to the park (which can be seen in the section), but they also increase their ground area, framing the existing courtyard between the former convent and and the church. The lateral circulation is marked orange.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Site plan

Museum and park intermingle: while the park rests on the different levels of the museum, the building with its augmenting floor area increasingly gains presence in the park.
Above the new building is church St. Dominique, to the right the former prison from the 19th century, below the main building from the early 20th century. The new building and the prison are connected by a tunnel underneath the earth.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Ground floor

The Grand Hall serves as an interior urban plaza and connects the different public functions with each other and the street. From a small plaza, the visitors come into the Grand Hall through a vestibule, and find along the left side of the hall first the coat check with the restrooms, then the courtyard and the boutique, lined up one after another. On the right side close to the entrance lies the café, then the central core with the elevator and the information desk with the ticketing, embedded into the atrium with the central staircase. At the end of the Grand Hall lies the entrance to the galleries for the temporary exhibitions.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Grand Hall

The stacked volumes create a 14m high space, roofed by the cantilever of the third volume. The dominant element of the Grand Hall is the golden core, which pierces all floors, connecting the basement with the roof. Front right is the café, in the back the atrium. The floor material is black slate from the Québec region.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Presbytery

The presbytery houses secondary rooms on the ground floor, with the coat check open to the Grand Hall. The upper floors are occupied by office spaces.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Café

The café is distinguished from the Grand Hall by a different floor level. Alike an excavation, the floor material changes and exposes the concrete foundation. The circular concrete seating is partly covered with a softer textile.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Boutique

Situated at a corner point of the Grand Hall and the courtyard, the boutique is oriented with its reading area and shelving towards the large windows vis-à-vis the presbytery. The gesture of the concave two-storey cavity of the entrance area reappears at the courtyard facade, thus allowing for a small library in a mezzanine storey.
The change of materials from a white wall to a plywood wall cladding underlines the sculptural gesture and creates a special presence in the Grand Hall.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Information desk

Part of the atrium with the central circulation, the information desk is a continuation and widening of the guardrail which continues from the atrium stair to a spiral stair leading into the basement. The atrium space is cut out of the stacked volumes and can be seen as a vertical counterpart to the horizontal gallery boxes.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Circulation

The lateral circulation area that runs along all floors has been cut out of the stacked volumes. The irregular cut line reacts with its varied forms to the nearby exhibition spaces and creates a spatially heterogeneous cascade-like circulation space.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Atrium

View from the mezzanine into the central atrium, with a curved wall to the rooms of the permanent exhibition. A spiral staircase leads to the basement with the auditorium lobby. The guardrail in the atrium is massive to the outside and glazed to the inside. The floor material is brushed aluminum.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Foyer third floor

with the staircase to the roof. Behind the convex wall is the Inuit gallery. The stair to the roof is clad with american walnut as seating, the inserted steps are made of aluminum.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Third floor

Apart from the spaces fort the Inuit art and the design exhibition, visitors can also reach the first roof terrace on top of the second of the three stacked boxes. The way to the third floor leads through an exterior stair that is mounted to the northwest facade.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Galleries

The gallery spaces are kept in a neutral white, with a floor cladding made of canadian maple. Die lighting can react to multiple exhibition concepts.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Longitudinal section

The golden core holds together all the different levels in the museum. Via a tunnel that is subdivided into different resting zones the visitors are able to reach the neighboring building of the old prison.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

First basement floor

Apart from the auditorium and the vast hidden areas for the preparation and conservation of art, the first basement floor also connects to the existing museum. The tunnel is widened by a space with a bar for the auditorium and a topography room, in which smaller lectures or media art can be shown.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Auditorium

View from the first basement floor. The gesture of carving into the earth is underlined by a gradient of color on the seating and the wall cladding. The windows to the first basement floor can be blackened out by special curtains.

all drawings and images © OMA Office for Metropolitan Architecture

Facade

The facade is mainly characterized by the openly displayed vertical and diagonal steel columns, that stand behind a glass facade with an outermost layer of structured glass. The facade glazing consists of a mutilayer insulating glass with different kinds of printings. The prominent steel structure is underlined by this ornament glass detail and gets a special depth.