Permanent Collection

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An architecture museum that uses itself to teach people about architecture

An architecture museum is one of the few buildings that has to house and display other buildings. From the full-scale prototype to the microfiche archive, the scalar range of the collection is immense. This project harnesses the extreme dimensional difference of the objects in its collection to propose a building with radical shifts in section. As the ceiling height shrinks from 35’-0” to 11’-0” across five floors, the structural systems shifts to accommodate larger spans, more columns, etc. With these changes comes the opportunity to recall five canonical plan organizations: the free plan, the ring (with atrium), the hypostyle hall, the forest, and the villa. As the visitor ascends—either through the glass elevator or the spiral stair—they experience pronounced material, structural and spatial shifts, sampling a history of Architecture on their way.