Kengo Kuma & Associates Unveils Stacked Timber Museum in Turkey

Kengo Kuma & Associates has revealed their upcoming design for the Odunpazari Modern Art Museum in Eskisehir, Turkey. The design borrows the scale and materiality of traditional Ottoman wooden houses.

The neighborhood to allocate the new museum is the Odunpazari area, also known as the "wood market" in Turkish. It's a city home area rich with winding streets and historic Ottoman homes that feature cantilevered upper levels, which sets course for the language of the Odunpazari Modern Art Museum.

Inspired by the traditional Ottoman wooden houses, the Odunpazari Modern Art Museum strives to become the new cultural venue that weaves into the existing streetscape. "Our design strategy is to make the volume in aggregation; stacking small boxes to create urban scale architecture," the architects said, according to Arch Daily.

The architects would use stacked and interconnected wooden boxes to create diversity for indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces, and stacked volumes that appear wider as they approach the heart of the Odunpazari Modern Art Museum. Such design would establish relatedness to an urban environment while becoming the new cultural landmark of Odunpazari.

Gallery spaces of the Odunpazari Modern Art Museum will also offer flexible opportunities for the display of art. Large scale art installations will be displayed on the ground floor level, while the smaller boxes on the upper levels will be intentionally downsized to displayed more intimate scales of art.

This includes a central atrium made up of timber blocks that connects each level of the museum. The interlocks would allow natural light to penetrate the Odunpazari Modern Art Museum through the skylight above, according to Design MENA.

The city of Eskisehir is known for its student population, besides the locals, that are primarily targeted as visitors. The Odunpazari Modern Art Museum project is currently under construction and is awaiting the announcement of the opening date.