Print Email Facebook Twitter A Way of Seeing Title A Way of Seeing: The M HKA as a public archive of contemporary art Author Korpacka, Julia (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment) Contributor Pimlott, Mark (mentor) Thomas, A.R. (graduation committee) Klooster, M.W. (graduation committee) Rosbottom, D.J. (graduation committee) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Programme Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Interiors Buildings Cities Project An Architecture for Art Date 2023-06-26 Abstract This project stems from an interest in institutions and the materialisation of politics within them, implicit and explicit. Art and architecture both have the capacity to be a scaffolding upon which protest and proposition of alternative relations can be built and communicated. While museum and art has always been implicated in commercial and political reality of power and authority, with the retreat of public funding and an increase in private, there is a gap which museums try to fill by adopting business strategies of shopping malls to cover the huge costs of heating, cooling and dehumidifying their expansive interiors in addition to competing with the private art market. At the same time, they strive to maintain their authority through institutional responsibility towards the society.The aim of my project is to question the role and impact of architecture in the politics of a museum, with an understanding of the complex reality of museum-making. The interrogation of the original competition brief for the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (M HKA) with regards to the budget, the spatial ambitions or demands, and the fundamental sustainability of resources, led me to propose why an alternative proposal for the M HKA could and should be put forward. The economic and spatial arguments, together with my position towards the climate crisis and research on the history of the institution, have resulted in a proposition radically different from the original brief, but still very much connected to it and resulting from it. Adapting the existing courthouse building on site for a public archive of contemporary art not only allows a more intelligent budget distribution, but forces different power relations with regards to public funding, its responsibilities and sense of permanence. Densifying and reducing the amount of space required for art encourages more targeted architectural decisions, other types of spaces, actually fitting more appropriately into the existing courthouse building.This project inscribes itself in a trend of public archives, while at the same time taking a critical position of an outsider-insider. The adaptation of the courthouse for the new MHKA allows a unique focus on the processes before and during the construction, acting as an event in the city, making transparent the process of change and adaptation.The architecture of the new museum will be an expression of its positioning towards art, the public and the city. As my graduation project, it also expresses my position towards an uncritical building culture of competitions, ethical and professional sensitivity to the larger social and environmental context. By preserving the court building, I argue that embodied carbon is as valid an argument against demolition as heritage value and by interrogating and negotiating the demands of the competition brief against its budget, type of institution and the current economic, political and ecological reality, I question the role and responsibility of the architect in the face of multiplicity of crises. Subject Contemporary ArtArchiveMuseumAntwerpAdaptationExisting BuildingsCritiqueInteriors Buildings CitiesAn Architecture for Artmuseum architecture To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c4b48c7c-96e8-431a-8f51-e232f8420e0a Coordinates 51.209854408927406, 4.388762085001203 Bibliographical note https://vimeo.com/809005770?share=copy P1 Video - Archive https://vimeo.com/841879400?share=copy P4 Video - Forum Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights © 2023 Julia Korpacka Files PDF 2023_MSc4_Antwerp_Korpack ... tation.pdf 28.52 MB PDF 2023_MSc4_Antwerp_Korpack ... ournal.pdf 56.24 MB MP4 IDEALLY_P1_short.mp4 260 MB MP4 Sequence_02.mp4 277.78 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:c4b48c7c-96e8-431a-8f51-e232f8420e0a/datastream/OBJ3/view