Anticipating the Future
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Santiago Calatrava is celebrating the opening of the Museu do Amanhã (The Museum of Tomorrow) this week in Rio de Janeiro. The highly anticipated museum, built on the Pier Mauá, features a distinct cantilevering roof that stretches 75-meters over the museum’s 7,600-square-meter plaza and 45-meters towards the sea. «The city of Rio de Janeiro is setting an example to the world of how to recover quality urban spaces through drastic intervention and the creation of cultural facilities such as the Museum of Tomorrow,” said Santiago Calatrava.
«This vision led us, in our first designs, to propose the addition of a plaza outside the Museum. The plaza creates a more cohesive urban space and reflects the neighborhood’s greater transformation. The idea is that the building feels ethereal, almost floating on the sea, like a ship, a bird or a plant. Because of the changing nature of the exhibits, we have introduced an archetypal structure inside the building. This simplicity allows for the functional versatility of the Museum, able to accommodate conferences or act as a research space,» said Calatrava. Gardens, bike paths, leisure ares and massive reflecting pool surround the 18-meter-tall museum, providing new amenities to the public and giving the sensation that the building is floating on the water.
The permanent exhibition space is housed in the building’s top floor. It features a10-meterhigh roof that frames panoramic views of Guanabara Bay. The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies have announced Santiago Calatrava as the winner of their 2015 European Prize for Architecture. Calling Calatrava «a visionary theorist, philosopher and utopian and a true artist in the craft of engineering and architectonic expressionism, » president of the Chicago Athenaeum Christian Narkiewicz- Laine noted that «it is significant that The European Prize for Architecture honors Calatrava as an architect, engineer, sculptor, and painter.”
SANTIAGO CALATRAVA ARCHITECTS & INGINEERS
