Amanda Levete Designed MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology Opens in Lisbon
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One of this fall’s most anticipated highlights, Lisbon’s MAAT–Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology officially opens its doors to the public on October 5, with a grand program organized under the leadership of its new director, former MoMA architec
Amanda Levete Designed MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology Opens in Lisbon
One of this fall’s most anticipated highlights, Lisbon’s MAAT–Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology officially opens its doors to the public on October 5, with a grand program organized under the leadership of its new director, former MoMA architecture curator Pedro Gadanho. Central to the festivities announced for the event is the inauguration of the all-new Kunsthalle, a creation of British architect Amanda Levete’s firm AL_A.Renderings of the sleek looking building on the Tagus River in Belém—one of Lisbon’s most historic waterfronts—had already begun surfacing some months ago, presenting an elongated building that elegantly hides its 38,000 square meters behind a fluid façade and an ephemeral construction, visually echoing the waterside with a reflective skin of 15,000 three-dimensional tiles (in reference to the rich Portuguese ceramic tradition). With its characteristic shape, the new Kunsthalle is bound to become one of Lisbon’s new tourist attractions.The venue will be accompanied by a pedestrian bridge also designed by AL_A and scheduled to open in March 2017. This will lead directly to the Kunsthalle’s roof, thus connecting the waterfront location and its many viewing platforms with the city. Further plans include a new restaurant and a park designed by Vladimir Djurovic Landscape Architecture.“Our design draws on the context of the site, creating both physical and conceptual connections to the waterfront and back to the heart of the city,” Levete said in an official statement, issued this week. “The waterfront is so essential to the project that the design literally reflects it,” she added. “The overhanging roof that creates welcome shade is used to bounce sunlight off the water and into the Main Gallery, one of the four interconnected exhibition spaces.”Together with the recently renovated Central Tejo power station, the new museum forms a vast cultural complex on a campus owned by the EDP Group, one of the country’s largest energy providers, which is aiming to create a new cultural hub at this formerly cut-off area of the Portuguese capital, and at reanimating the historic waterfront in the process. The opening program of the new location promises a lot of spectacle, with a 12-hour public program featuring exhibition openings, educational events, performances and music happenings.Adding to the attraction is the MAAT’s thematic scope, which will be as sprawling as its new campus. Next to a collection of Portuguese art, the program will be addressing contemporary culture through formats and events on visual arts, new media, architecture, technology, and science, starting this week with “Utopia/Dystopia, Part I and II,” the MAAT’s first site-specific commission, including almost 1,000 square meters of a fictional environment titled “Pynchon Park” by French artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, to be concluded by a group show of more than 60 international artists in March.Further highlights this week include a design show titled “The World of Charles and Ray Eames,” organized in collaboration with the London Barbican Centre, at the central Tejo building, as well as one of the main exhibitions of the concurrent 4th Lisbon Architecure Triennale, “The Form of Form,” in the power station courtyard. Plus: Lawrence Weiner will install a site-specific work; Nuno da Luz will give a presentation; and Haroon Mirza and Ryoji Ikeda, among others, will be showing live AV performances.Click here for more information on the MAAT Lisbon and its inaugural program.See more photos of the new MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon as well as exhibitions views from the inaugural program in the slideshow. Read more
