Art Arena Roland Museum

Art Film Museum. London. 2002-2006 Part of an international competition for Ground Zero

Site: London, UK Client: Roland Collection

www.serero.com

Program: 14,000 m2 of exhibition space including 40 film projection spaces, Restaurant, Cafeteria, Bookstore / Gift shop, Offices, Restrooms, Storage, Lobby, Atrium Cost: €35 million Design Team : David Serero, Elena Fernandez, Janny Baek, Iris Faiman Givoli, Chloe Giroud, Diego Rosales

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Designed to house a unique collection of films about art ranging from Classical to Contemporary art forms, this museum encompasses 42 projection theaters playing films simultaneously. The layout of the Art Arena is designed in relation to time zones controlled by the schedule of film projection. This allows the generation of flexible museum visit patterns. The visitor experiences the synchronization with sequence of the architectural spaces with the sequence of the time-based artworks. The seats grouped in clusters have been conceived as an interior topography, based on time sections generated from the same process.

Art Arena

New audio set technology and video projection systems have been utilized to free the museum spaces from the conventional acoustical limitation of a projection room and to remove the spatial enclosure of the traditional film theater. The projection spaces can therefore blend into one another along the continuous wall and ceiling surface.

Art Arena

The structure of the building is a flexible system of concrete shells and beams that accommodate the different sizes of theaters. They are supported by hollow structural cores, which contain public amenities of the museum such as restaurant, cafeteria, bookstore, and atrium. These cores, opened to the sky, are devices used to control the lightness and darkness within the museum spaces. The roof, at the height of the street level is at the same time a portal and a public ground extending the museum activities to the city, with open-air theaters for special events and night projections.

Art Arena