Allessandro Mendini, 1988-1994
Groningen

In the eighties, the Groninger Museum could turn its thoughts to a new building thanks to a gift from the local Gas Company. After a lot of political bantering it was decided to site it on an island to be built in the turning basin of the Verbindingskanaal, opposite the station. Gasunie expected its donation to produce an exemplary monument of international standing. However, the council desired top architectural quality but nothing arresting enough to clash with the historical surroundings. Furthermore, the council wanted a cycling route through from the station to the inner city. The locals did not really want anything. Museum Director Frans Haks was willing to do anything, as long as Italian designer Mendini was the architect. Hardly the most stable of situation in which to hone a design into shape.

But then that was not the idea: both Haks and Mendini are of opinion that our age is marked by a heterogeneous totality of confronting aesthetics and that the museum is a reflection of this condition. Mendini's design sports an 'archaic symmetrical form,' consisting of several pavilions linked longitudinally. Mendini enlisted the collaboration of an international coterie of architects, designers and artists, to bring to the homogeneous framework of the main statement a heterogeneous collage of architectural ideals.

The museum breaks down into three parts linked at the lowest level by a central corridor. Mendini himself designed the central portion, which includes the restaurant, the library, offices and other facilities. Towering over the whole is the all gold storeroom, the treasure house of the museum. The two remaining parts contain the museum galleries and each consists of two stacked pavilions with an architect apiece. Of the western portion, Michele de Lucchi designed the basement clad in untreated red brick for the archaeology and history section. Perched above it is a metal pillbox care of Philippe Starck, housing the applied art section. Its open interior can be subdivided using undulating curtains. The basement of the eastern part houses the modern art collection and is the work of Mendini himself. Originally, the rooftop pavilion for the old masters was to have been designed by the artist Frank Stella. When he backed down Coop Himmelblau was asked to fill the gap at short notice. An expressive explosion of steel plate and glass, their design was done intuitively with the aid of models, an attempt to realize 'fluid' architecture that is raw, sharp and vibrant. Remarkably, in view of the deliberately provocative architecture, the hubbub died down immediately on delivery and following a successful first year it was as though the museum had been standing on this most logical of sites for centuries.