AN award-winning Spanish-designed art gallery has finally opened for its first full season.
Norway’s Kunstsilo museum snared Spanish architects Mestres Wag Arquitectes, BAX Studios and Mendoza Partida various prizes last year.
Named as the World’s Most Beautiful Museum at the Prix Versailles awards in December, the 1930s grain silo is set to become a huge global hit this year.
Based on the waterfront in Kristiansand, the renovation of the industrial building was praised for its clever use of glass, steel and timber.
The museum – which also won Spain’s recent Architects Association prize – will feature 600 works of modern art across various exhibitions this year.
The grain silo, sitting in Norway’s most southerly point, is no stranger to awards, its original architects winning a prize four years after its construction in 1935.
It has completely breathed new life into the coastal city of 116,000 people.
Inserting glass, steel and timber allowed light to be let into the series of concrete silos.
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In doing so, architects created a space where exhibitions run vertically and horizontally and communal spaces offer panoramic views.
It has revolutionised the Scandinavian art scene, with visitors entering an open atrium where the silos have been cut away, unveiling a basilica-like central space.
“The silo becomes a sculpture that the museum is organized in and around,” explained Magnus Wage of Mestres Wag Arquitectes, based in Barcelona.
Founded alongside Maria Mestres in 2005, the architect added: “This radical intervention reveals the expressive power of the original building.”
The firm was joined by two others from Barcelona – BAX Studios and Mendoza Partida – to create the project.
The gallery has the world’s largest collection of Nordic Modernist art, including Norwegian artists Johannes Rian and Reidar Aulie.
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