architecture . landscape . urbanism
Nam June Paik Museum

open international Ideas Competition, 2003, Yong-In, Korea

Finalist

The visitor enters the museum through a sensor controlled artificial waterfall. This curtain of water defines the edge to the world of Nam June Paik. Underneath the ground we have created an museum space like a telematic cave which is not hermeticly sealed but constantly shifting between the outside nature and the inside exhibition space. The visitor enters the museum through a sensor controlled waterfall. The entry hall which inhabits lobby, book shop, and café leads the visitor directly to the three main exhibition halls. The slightly curved main exhibition fingers are penetrated with spaces of various sizes in floor and ceilling. These spaces of various dimensions allow the curators to display each piece of NJP within a space of an adequate size and character. Within the three huge exhibition halls the penetrations form a series of single galleries with different ceilling heights which are capable of reducing sound propagation. Every masterpiece of Paik will get his own hemisphere of light and sound.
The connections between the three exhibition fingers leading through outside chasms which also include vertical circulation to the holed galleries as well as fire exits to the outside via staircases and elevators. Five fire escapes ensure public safety.