Contemporary Art Museum, Toledo

Contemporary Art Museum, Toledo

Projects 5

Delivered: 2005 Fall

Tutor: Enrique Colomés

TU: Bonet

This museum, located in the World Heritage City of Toledo, is proposed in the eastern boundary, overlooking the river Tajo. The aim of the design is to hide the building, to keep the views from Zocodóver Square, and to surprise the pedestrians going down high pitch route, Miguel de Cervantes Street.

The new Contemporary Art Museum is a semi-buried building, flushed with the slope. The plan is conceived through the urban traces. The concrete structure provides with three different directions, dividing the plan with two wedges. The access is prompted by these two wedges: the visitors’ one and other one for workers and vehicles.

The main entrance is vanished, and you don’t notice it until you get the end of the street and cross the plateau to look to the views and the river. The dug-in edge of the plan is defined by a large crooked concrete retaining wall. This wall defines the line of inner serpent circulation. The end of this route is 40 feet (12 meters) below, in the full-height foyer, guiding people to Carmen Walk. 

The museum area is a three storey block. It is connected with the services block by the wedged foyer. This area comprises a library, which can be used independently by citizens, seminar rooms, and an auditorium and a cafeteria in the ground level. The third block, including administrative offices and warehouse, is linked in the ground floor with the museum’s one. The main museum area is conceived like a walkway between artworks and natural elements. There are facilities for permanent exhibitions in the two upper storeys, and for temporary exhibition, with easier removable walls, in grounds’ one. The light is drawn into this walk by northern orientation vertical glazed spans and by large translucent glass windows looking to the river.