MUSAC
delineates a stage for art with the same optimistic attitude used by the Roman
surveyors to sketch their cities in the landscape. In contrast to other types
of museums, which focus on the exhibition of frozen historic collections, MUSAC
is a living space that opens its doors to the wide-ranging manifestations of
contemporary art. This is an art centre that constructs a set of chessboards on
which the action becomes the protagonist of the space; a structure that
develops from an open system, formed by a fabric of squares and rhombi,
allowing the construction of a secret geography of memory.
MUSAC is a new space for culture,
regarded as something that makes visible the connections between man and
nature. A cluster of chained but independent rooms that permit exhibitions of
differing sizes and types. Each of the jaggedly shaped rooms constructs a
continuous yet spatially differentiated area that opens onto the other rooms
and courtyards, providing longitudinal, transversal and diagonal views. Five
hundred prefab beams enclose a series of spaces that feature systematic
repetition and formal expressiveness.
Outside,
the public space takes on a concave shape to hold the activities and meetings,
embraced by large coloured glass in homage to the city as the place for
interpersonal relationships. Inside, a large area of continuous, diverse
spaces, spattered with courtyards and large skylights, defines an expressive
system that speaks to us of the interest shared by architecture and art: the
contemporary manifestation of the variable and the perennial, of equality and
difference, of universality and transience, an echo of our own diversity and
equality as people.
Proportionally to its size,
that of a single storey building with white concrete walls and large coloured
glazing, MUSAC strives to be a space where art is at ease and helps to erase
the boundaries between private and public, between work and leisure and
ultimately, between art and life.
TECHNICAL DATA. Location: Avenida de los
Reyes Leoneses, León, Spain. Architects: Luis M. Mansilla and Emilio Tuñón. Client: Gesturcal S.A.,
Regional Government of Castilla y León. Collaborators: Andrés Regueiro, Luis Díaz-Mauriño, Ainoa Prats, Jaime
Gimeno, Matilde Peralta, Clara Moneo, Teresa Cruz, Oscar F. Aguayo, Gregory
Peñate, Katrien Vertenten and Ricardo Lorenzana. Structural engineers: Alfonso Gómez Gaite. Mechanical
engineers: J.G. Asociados. Construction manager:
Luis M. Mansilla, Emilio Tuñón and Andrés Regueiro. Quantity
Surveyor/Technical Architect: Arcadio Conde, Santiago Hernán and Juan Carlos Corona. Design project:
2001. Work completion: 2004. Built area: 10.000 m². General contractor: Musac de León UTE
(FCC/Teconsa). Photographer: Luis Asín.
