How do you rehabilitate a space originally designed to guard and punish into a center for knowledge and culture? How can you expose, resign and facilitate the access to an enclosed archive? In this project the space previously reserved for the look of only one person, is opened for the gaze of everybody. Through an ambulatory we create a new democratic experience. We preserve the principle of the panopticon from its inverse: restoring force to the social gaze, descending the axis of the ensemble to its radial base, opening way to an integrated cognitive experience; articulating the architectural space from transparency and fluidity. The cultural center is designed as an archive of archives: their walkway becomes a multi-sensorial and haptic experience. The project does not only add new ways for reinterpretation of the acquis to the original program, it also provides resources for its sustainability. Museums, galleries, gardens and collections have been re-conceived as an expanded archive to attract and create new audiences to stimulate their urban environment. That purpose is achieved through three key elements: the architectural design, landscape architecture and museology........more
