Culture museum Basilea
In a city defended by mountains, the roofscape takes on great importance: a fifth façade, easily visible from the buildings, looking towards the sky. In Bern, Herzog & de Meuron architects are creating the extension of the museum, focusing on the roof. They are disrupting traditional geometries, but without betraying the characteristic features of the context. The roof shimmers, redesigned in ceramic material, is iridescent under the sun’s rays. The ground descends on a slight slope to the museum’s new entrance, that it extends into homogenous stone paving in Pietra Serena - waxy, smooth, uniform. On the ground floor, set lower than the outside ground level, the design appears to lay the rock that makes up the mountains: above and below, the relationship with the surroundings is emphasised. On the upper floors the stone slabs cover the landings to the windows which extend to the ground and gently gather the light and the colours of the city.