Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle is situated on the border between the medieval city’s center and an open, 19th century park characterized by its canals. Faced with the question of how to expand the Dutch art museum without intruding on the historic district or altering the museum’s symmetry, architect Hubert-Jan Henket of Bierman Henket Architecten opted to extend the structure vertically, with a ball-shaped addition that is clad in blue and white three-dimensional tiles.
The superstructure, just like the substructure, is symmetrical in two directions. The shape resembles a rugby ball. Together, the two totally different volumes form a new urban entity. There are also two contrasting interpretations in the interior: the classical succession of rectangular museum halls below versus the fluid, open spaces in the elliptical volume above.
Steel columns inside the museum support the new extension, which houses two exhibition floors. The extension, called the “Art Cloud,” is clad with 55,000 three-dimensional ceramic elements produced by Koninklijke Tichelaar of Makkum, the Netherlands. Together, the mixed blue and white glazed tiles form a surface which, depending on the weather, merges into the sky. On the northern side, daylight floods into the new exhibition floors through a large glazed pane in the tiled superstructure.
Above image: The ceramic-clad “Art Cloud” floating above the Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle, the Netherlands created by Bierman Henket Architecten. Courtesy of the architects. Text (edited) courtesy of the architects.
Bierman Henket Architecten’s extension of the Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle, the Netherlands is a ceramic-clad “Art Cloud” floating above the existing neoclassical structure. All images courtesy of the architects.
The Museum De Fundatie in the Netherlands with a ceramic-clad vertical extension by the Bierman Henket architecture firm.
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