Wunderkammer

— by Septembre Architecture —

The concept is clear and manifest. A generous interior void, from which the whole collection is visible. A contemporary “Wunderkammer/Cabinet de curiosités” where the objects are not arranged in the classical way. The building is organized in two parts around the large void which allows for two façades, one internal and one external. The outer layer houses the work and research part of the program, with functions such as administration, library, laboratories, taxidermy workshop and activities for the public.

The glazed inner layer is dedicated to the exhibition of natural objects, positioned in boxes of different sizes. One of the biases of the project is to not separate the storage / archiving from the exposition areas. All objects of the collection are shown to the public. Another bias is to find an alternative taxonomy, a possibility to arrange the world in a new way. By altering the linear procedures of the 19th century, and exploring an organization in coherence with the 21th century.

Sami Aloulou: Wunderkammer is a museum of natural history in Berlin, it was a competition we had the second prize.
It’s a combination between an architecture project of course because it was a competition, but we had also an urban approach by the observation of the uses.
We wanted to make a project that it’s going an architecture object but also something that could create a new urban condition…

Dounia Hamdouch:…And an interaction between the building and the universities around.

Sami Aloulou: We wanted to organize an urban centrality between the museum, the university and the central station.
As an architectural approach we thought this project as a, we call it a “Cabinet de curiosités”. We’ve always been very impressed by the museums we went when we were kids, you enter a natural museum and you see a lot of spaces, a lot of animals all together, nothing seems to have an organization but behind it there’s a very big organization. This is what we wanted to show in this project…the project in itself is the scenography of the museum. The façade is already the organization of the things that have to be shown.

— Project description by Septembre Architecture —

The implementation of the new natural science museum articulates the different elements of the context, today disparate and unstructured. A slight tilt of the building allows for a public place opening up for visitors coming from the Banhoof zoo. A botanical garden establishes a human scale between the Volkswagen university building and the museum. The link between them is assured by a public gallery on the side of the Museum.

The configuration asserts the intellectual and cultural vocation of the building in its urban environment. It offers workspaces with interesting and inspiring views of the city, the university area and the zoo.
The transparent facade that exposes the people working within the museum weaves a tangible link with neighboring universities, as well as the botanical garden in front. The botanical garden ensures the continuation of the museum and serves as a privileged public space for encounters between researchers, students and the public.